The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on Thursday began repair works on Port Harcourt Refineries Companies (PHRC) as it turned it over to the contractor, Tecnimont SPA.
The Group Managing Director, Malam Mele Kyari made this known at meeting on the commencement of the rehabilitation of PHRC in Port Harcourt.
On completion of the repair works, the GMD said it is expected the the refinery would be 90 per cent operational.
Kyari, who was represented by the Chief Financial Officer, Mr Umar Ajiya, added that, “We will support all that is necessary to be done to expedite the rehabilitation, we are ready to support your contract to secure the necessary approvals internally within Nigeria.”
“We shall from time to time visit to see the progress of work outside, and sooner than later we shall come on to commission the work.
“This is the most transparent contract and we expect the contractor to be excellent with the work. We expect 90 percent operational values after the rehabilitation of the refineries in production capacity, ” he added.
PHRC operates two refineries; the old refinery with a nameplate capacity of 60,000 barrels per stream day (bpsd) and new refinery with an installed capacity of 150,000 bpsd making it 210,000bpsd crude processing capacity.
Also speaking, the Chief Operating Officer, Refineries and Petrochemicals, NNPC, Mustapha Yakubu, said that last month, the corporation signed off on the Engineering, procurement and Construction (EPC) but the kick off meeting signified the beginning of the rehabilitation of the refinery.
He stated that out of the 3,000 expected employees for the project, only 70 expatriates would be involved in the rehabilitation of the refinery.
The Managing Director of the refinery, Dikko Ahmed, said host communities remained major stakeholders in the project.
Masu Alberto, the representative of the contractor, Technimont SPA said that the journey started in 2017 with an integrity test of the refinery.
