The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) yesterday announced the commencement of rehabilitation of the 210,000 barrels per day (bpd) capacity Port Harcourt Refinery in Rivers State.
A statement issued by its General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Ndu Ughamadu, affirmed that the Group Managing Director (GMD), Maikanti Baru, commissioned the project in Port Harcourt.
It comprises the 60,000 bpd old refinery built in 1965 and the 150,000 bpd refinery commissioned in 1989. The development came 19 years after the last Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of the facility.
Baru disclosed that Milan-based Maire Tecnimont S.p.A, in collaboration with its Nigerian affiliate, Tecnimont Nigeria, would execute the project.
Maire Tecnimont S.p.A is listed on the Milan Stock Exchange with interest in international engineering and construction, technology and licensing, as well as energy business development.
The Tecnimont Group has operations in 40 countries, 50 operative companies with a workforce of about 5,500 employees.
At the end of the phase one repair, the refinery complex should be able to reach 60 per cent capacity utilisation, Baru said.
He stated that NNPC was engaging Eni/NAOC as Technical Advisor to support the rehabilitation of PHRC, saying organisation would leverage Eni’s extensive refinery supply chain network and warehouses to procure critical materials for the project.
Baru noted that the first phase of the rehabilitation contract, which would run for six months would involve detailed integrity check and equipment inspection of the refinery beginning from end of this month.
Speaking on behalf of the contractors, Chief Officer, Upstream, Eni, Antonio Vella, said the companies involved in the project would deploy all available modern resources to ensure effective upgrade of the plant.
Branch Chairman of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association (PENGASSAN), Odor Victor Ayiri and Chairman, National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Dibiah Joseph, pledged workers support to ensure smooth turnaround of the facility.
Besides, the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) and the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Limited (NLNG) will today in Abuja sign the Nigerian Content Plan (NCP) for NLNG’s Train 7 project estimated to cost $1 billion.
A statement issued by the Corporate Communications Officer, Obinna Ezeobi, revealed that Executive Secretary of NCDMB, Simbi Wabote and Managing Director of NLNG, Tony Attah, met at the Board’s headquarters in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State yesterday to finalise arrangements for the signing ceremony.
The Train 7 project is expected to ramp up NLNG’s production capacity by 35 per cent from 22 million tons per annum (MTPA) to 30 MTPA.
