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INTERVIEW WITH THE GM REFINERY
The 'General Manager of the WRPC,
Mr. Abdul Isa in this Question and Answer
session speaks about the WRPC 5,000bpd
modular refinery commissioned in Ibigwe,
Imo-State:
Let's start with the journey so far. What did
WRPC do differently with respect to the
Waltersmith refinery?
Whatever project you are going to do, you
need to have a strong business case for it.
So, that is what we have done. We had a
strong business case; we didn't just say
because Government was issuing licenses,
we should get the license. When we
conceived this whole refinery idea, it was
around how we could support our upstream
business because when we produced oil, we
were losing about 30 percent of our
revenues as a result of crude theft and
pipeline vandalism. So, we thought, “Why
don't we just install a modular refinery to
help us alleviate these two challenges?” And
we started; then we later realized that
indeed, there is a business opportunity. We
built a business case round it. So, we then
approached a financial institution, the
African Finance Corporation and said, “This
is a business case for this opportunity.” And
then they looked at it and said, 'We would
like to make sure that your upstream
company supports the refinery by way of
collateralizing it. And we agreed to do that.
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Once we got them on board we then went to
the Nigerian Content Development and
Monitoring Board, which provides what I
called 'transitional equity'. Usually, they are not
to stay forever; they stay there for a couple of
years and then they go. So, we agreed and
then decided they were going to be equity
participants. We then technically arranged all
the funding that was required for the project
and went ahead to find a competent
contractor. That was how we were able to
deliver the project on time and on budget.
The WS refinery was commissioned in
2020 in the middle of the COVID-19
Pandemic. How did you handle the
challenge caused by this and what
steps did you put in place?
Covid-19 was disruptive in every sense
of the word. We had initially planned
the pre-commissioning for the first
quarter of 2020 and the
commissioning itself for the second
quarter of 2020. We had to rethink our
plans and strategy. The aviation
industry took a hit and travels were
minimal and at a stage outrightly
cancelled. However, virtual meetings
with our partners continued and plans
towards the pre-commissioning and
commissioning were modified in
keeping with the current realities. We
also took advantage of the waiver on
movement related to oil and gas
activities which aided our operations
during the lockdown tremendously.
Nigeria started to ease its covid-19
lock-down restrictions sometime in the
third quarter of 2020 and we held
meetings on the suitability or
otherwise of having a physical
commissioning. We decided on a
physical commissioning and invested
heavily in PPE Kits, disinfection boots,
social distance parameters, e.t.c. We
also cut down the number of visitors
and ensured strict compliance with
covid-19 protocols.