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The Port Harcourt Refining Complex (PHRC) has a total capacity of 210,000 bpd (Photo: NNPC)

Nigeria’s Port Harcourt complex

unlikely to be restarted this year

NIGERIA THE managing director of Nigeria’s Port Har- so we all would be proud of all these activities
court Refining Complex (PHRC) has said that and begin to have some refining capacity in Port
the refinery will not resume operations until Harcourt.”
late next year, conflicting with a more optimistic The comments come just a few weeks after
outlook provided by the country’s oil minister. Nigerian Minister of State for Petroleum
PHRC’s Ahmed Dikko told a visiting delega- Resources Timipre Sylva said the plant could
tion from the House of Representatives’ Ad-Hoc resume processing crude “by the end of this
Committee on Refineries that the oldest part of year”.
the facility would be revamped and ready to Having secured a $1bn loan from Cai-
resume refining during the first quarter of 2023, ro-based African Export-Import Bank (Afrex-
under a broader, $1.5bn rehabilitation project. imbank) in February 2021, the Nigerian
PHRC comprises a 60,000 barrel per day government awarded a $1.5bn contract to Italy’s
(bpd) unit built in 1965, known as Area 5, and Maire Tecnimont two months later covering the
a newer unit built in 1989 capable of processing engineering, procurement and construction
150,000 bpd of crude. It has been off line since (EPC) work to revive the refinery.
2019 amid reports that no comprehensive turn- The original plan was to achieve 90% of its
around maintenance (TAM) had been carried nameplate capacity by 2023, with the second and
out for as long as 40 years. third phases six and 26 months later. The Italian
Dikko said that Area 5 would be the first to company, with compatriot supermajor Eni as
be repaired, adding that PHRC would reach its technical advisor, had carried out a $50mn, six-
210,000 bpd capacity by the end of 2024. month ‘integrity check’ including equipment
Despite having had to pay more to source inspection and “relevant engineering and plan-
and transport equipment by air to expedite the ning activities” in 2019.
work, he said, “we plan to finish Area 5 by the Ganiyu Johnson, chairman of the Ad-Hoc
first quarter of next year, so we can begin to run Committee said he and his colleagues were “sat-
it.” He continued: “It is the old refinery ... The isfied with the level of work, because we did not
other parts of the refinery would come a few expect this level of performance when we left
months after that.” Abuja.”
Dikko added: “We are on track and manag- Once work at PHRC is complete, rehabil-
ing the process very well and would continue itation work will begin on NNPC’s facilities at
to do the best we can at all times to ensure that Warri and Kaduna, which have capacities of
we meet these expectations we put on ourselves 125,000 bpd and 110,000 bpd respectively. ™

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