FG Approves N569bn For Rehabilitation Of Port Harcourt Refinery

The Federal government has announced the approval of the sum of N569bn ($1.5 bn) for the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt Refinery.

The contract which has been awarded to an Italian company, Technimount SPA, was approved on Wednesday, at the 38th virtual FEC meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja.

Recall the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mele Kyari had hinted on effort to rehabilitate the national refineries.

According to the GMD, the refineries have only worked sporadically for years due to activities of vandalisers.

He said, “Every refinery is expected to operate at least 90 per cent of installed capacity but it was impossible to run any of these refineries before the shut down at that level.

“We tried running at 60 per cent of the installed capacity but it led to value destruction, where you take $100 crude to the refinery and bring out only $70.”

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva at the meeting explained that the rehabilitation will be done in three phases of 18, 24 and 44 months.

“The Ministry of Petroleum Resources presented a memo on the rehabilitation of Port Harcourt refinery for the sum of $1.5bn, and that memo was $1.5bn and it was approved by council today.

“So we are happy to announce that the rehabilitation of productivity refinery will commence in three phases. The first phase is to be completed in 18 months, which will take the refinery to a production of 90 per cent of its nameplate capacity.

“The second phase is to be completed in 24 months and all the final stage will be completed in 44 months and consultations are approved, and I believe that this is good news for Nigeria.”

The Minister disclosed that the project would be jointly funded by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), budgetary allocations provisions and Afreximbank, respectively.

The GMD noted that the rehabilitation of the refineries were critical to ensuring that they can deliver beyond the 90 percent installed capacity.