Stakeholders doubt December handover date of Port Harcourt Refinery
Refinery won’t be ready in December – Worker Road leading to site in deplorable state Contractors battling to replace old facilities with modern tech Plant has capacity of refining 60,000 barrels of crude oil per day Barely 35 days before the end of Dec
On August 25, the Minister of State for Petroleum (Oil) Heineken Lokpobiri, has said that the Port Harcourt Refinery (PHRC) will be ready for operation by December 2023.
This was contained in a release signed by Garba Deen Muhammad, the Chief Corporate Communications Officer at the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited.
The minister gave the assurance during an inspection tour of the project site in Port Harcourt. But stakeholders have expressed doubts about the feasibility of the December date from the reality on ground.
The Alesa Eleme location of the multibillion naira federal government- owned Port Harcourt Refinery Company (PHRC) is a beehive of activities.
The entrance gate leading to Area Five, where the first phase of rehabilitation work of the refinery is taking place, has witnessed heavy human traffic, comprising mainly of both skilled and unskilled workers of various contracting firms working day and night to ensure that the December deadline given by the federal to hand over the first phase of the rehabilitation work is achieved.
By 12noon on November 22, 2023 when our correspondent visited the obsolete-looking refinery complex, many of the staff engaged by the contractors were filing out of the gate for lunch break.
The atmosphere and surroundings of the multibillion investment were fully charged, with various categories of staff moving from one place to another taking orders from their supervisors on what to do. But the reality on ground did not shown any sign that the project would be handed over in December.
Dr Joseph Obele, the executive chairman of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), whose association was accorded the privilege of oversight function of monitoring the progress of work at the ongoing rehabilitation work, expressed doubt that the December completion date would be feasible.
Obele told our correspondent that it was on record that the federal government borrowed $1.5billion from AFRIEX Bank for the repair of the refinery.
He said the former Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva, informed them that the refinery would commence operation in the second quarter of this year, but that promise failed. He added that another date of first quarter of this year also failed.
The IPMAN chairman said that despite failed efforts by the immediate past minister of state for petroleum to deliver the project at a record time, more efforts had been intensified for a speedy completion of the project.
He said the project had attained 90 per cent completion but expressed doubt that the December deadline completion time would be feasible.
He said, “During a meeting with the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Mr President announced to us that operation of the refinery, plus or minus, would commence on December 2023. And as the IPMAN chairman in Rivers State and an indigene of the host community of Alesa Eleme, where we have the refinery, arising from my office as part of my oversight function, I usually visit the site.
“I can tell you on good authority that work is going on seriously at the first phase of the refinery, which is Area Five. From my observation they are done with mechanical and civil engineering jobs; the part of the jobs they are doing now is the electrical, which has to do with instrumentations and installations.
“From more privileged information at my disposal, a commissioning committee has been constituted, but it is obvious that the refinery will be coming up next month, December or early January. No man can tell you authoritatively that the plant will be coming up in December. If they say December, it may be early January 2024. It is quite obvious that the progress of job is encouraging; and it is enormous.
“Since Mr President gave that marching order of December, the contractors are up to their game; they have redoubled their efforts at work in the site. So, as an association, our interest is to see the refinery commence in no distant time because the landing cost of fuel is becoming unbearable to the federal government and importation is witnessing some hiccups at the moment because we have a supply gap.
“The quantities demanded by marketers are not actually equal to the supply given to us by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited. That’s why we have supply shortage nationwide. The price of fuel is not what it ought to be. Some Nigerians are buying at N700 from some locations, some are buying at N800 from other locations, while some are buying at N900 per litre.”
He pointed out that the delay in the commencement of work at the refinery was bringing untold hardship to Nigerians, noting that Nigerians want to see the plants commence operation in no distant time.
“I can tell you that the progress of work at the refinery is at 90 per cent completion level,” he added.
A staff of Montego, one of the contracting firms handling the rehabilitation work, expressed doubt that the project would be delivered by December 2023.
Speaking with our correspondent under the condition of anonymity he said, “I don’t think the first phase of the rehabilitation work would be delivered by December because of the total rehabilitation work being carried out at Area Five, which is the first and oldest refinery. From my observation, that project will not be ready by December. The one they are working on right now, which is supposed to be ready by December, is the one they call Area Five. If they are serious it can be ready, but that particular refinery has been a problem.
“For about 30 years, that refinery has been down. It has gone through several rehabilitations but nothing serious has really come out of it.
“That particular refinery is out of modernity because the present technology is not there. It has a kind of manual facilities and does not have modern instrumentations. It does not have a control room and all those technological instrumentations. All the modern technological instrumentations should be installed for the facilities to be ready. All the instrumentations are designed abroad and the contractor only comes here to implement and install them.”
He said the contractors were battling to replace the manual facilities with modern technological instrumentations, adding that with the reality on ground, the project would not be ready by December.
Another staff of the company who also pleaded anonymity said the contractors were carrying out refurbishment of the 21 installation tanks at the Area Five of the refinery.
“There are about 21 tanks that are being refurbished right now. Out of the 21 tanks, 10 have been worked on and the remaining ones are undergoing refurbishment.