Mechanical Completion of PH Refinery: NNPCL’s Christmas Gift to Nigerians

Ifeanyi Onuba

The Port Harcourt refinery located in the oil-rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria has been operational since 1965. It is the oldest and the biggest of the three government-owned oil refining sites in the West African country.

Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), is the owner and operator of the refinery. The oil refinery complex consists of a 60,000 barrels per day (bpd) old refinery that started operations in 1965 and a 150,000bpd new refinery that came on stream in 1989.

Despite having a combined crude processing capacity of 210,000bpd, the Port Harcourt refinery, like other state refineries of the country, has been operating only at a fraction of its capacity over the last few decades due to process inefficiency and lack of maintenance. This has led to the growing reliance of Nigeria, Africa’s largest crude producer, on imports of refined petroleum products.

The PHRC rehabilitation project, which costs about $1.5bn, is an EPCIC project that covers engineering, procurement, construction, installation, and commissioning phases.

For Area-5, which is a segment of the refinery that will produce 60 million barrels per day, the engineering, procurement, construction, and installation have all been completed. The mechanical completion signifies the closure of the construction and installation phases, according to NNPCL.

The milestone was achieved under a Health, Safety and Environment record, which stood at over 9.5 million man-hour with zero Loss Time Injury.

On April 7, 2021, the NNPC officially signed a contract with Tecnimont SPA for the $1.5bn rehabilitation program of the Port Harcourt Refining Company.

Parties in the agreement also announced the commencement of the project following the signing of the contract at the headquarters of the company in Abuja

The rehabilitation project, being undertaken in three phases, is expected to be completed by 2025. But the first phase of the project, which is the mechanical completion phase, was done by the NNPC on Thursday.

The new Port Harcourt refinery comprises a Crude Distillation Unit (CDU), a Vacuum Distillation Unit (VDU), a Naphtha Hydrotreating Unit (NHTU), a Catalytic Reforming Unit (CRU), a Continuous Catalyst Regeneration (CCR) Unit, a kerosene hydrotreating unit, a fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) unit, and a dimersol unit to convert propylene into a gasoline blendstock.

It also houses a butamer isomerisation unit, an alkylation unit, apart from hydrogen purification, fuel gas vaporiser, sour water, and caustic treatment units.

The old refinery comprises a CDU, a CRU, and a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) facility.

The refinery complex uses four turbo-generators of 14MW an hour of electricity generation capacity each and four boilers of 120 tonnes (t) an hour of steam generation capacity each. The refinery products include petrol, diesel, LPG, aviation and domestic kerosene, low pour fuel oil (LPFO), and heavy pour fuel oil (HPFO)

Last year September, the then Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, said the country’s biggest crude refinery in Port Harcourt would restart operation in December after it had completed a revamp that began over a year ago. But that the timelines were unmet.

Again, in January 2023, Sylva assured that part of the refinery would be completed by the year’s first quarter, but the government again failed to meet its target.

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobirii had in August this year assured that the Port Harcourt refinery will become functional by December while Warri and Kaduna will be ready by the end of next year.

But after many years of painstaking efforts to refine petroluem products in Nigeria, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd finally fulfilled its promise to Nigerians to complete the Rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt Refinery. With the completion of the project, the refining of Petroleum products is expected to commence immediately after the Christmas break.

Lokpobiri,  revealed this during the 15th Refineries Rehabilitation Steering Committee Meeting held in Port Harcourt.

The meeting was attended by the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mallam Mele Kyari; NNPC Limited’s Executive Vice President, Upstream, Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan; and the NNPC Board Chairman Chief Pius Akinyelure.

The Minister said bringing back the refineries to their optimal levels is a national aspiration, and the government remains focused on delivering that.

The facility would start refining 60,000 barrels of crude oil after the Christmas break. About 170 liters of refined petroleum products can be obtained from a barrel of crude oil. This implies that the 60,000bpd production from the Port Harcourt refinery can provide an estimated 10.2 million liters of Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol and other refined products.

The government also stated that the importation of Liquefied Petroleum Gas, popularly called cooking gas, would reduce after the Christmas break, as the refinery starts pumping out refined products.

He said, “The meeting today coincides with the commencement of operations at the Port Harcourt refinery. This is to announce to Nigerians that in fulfilment of our pledge in completing phase one of the Port Harcourt refinery by the end of 2023, and the subsequent streaming of phase two in 2024, we happily announce the mechanical completion of flare start-up on December 20, 2023.

“This heralds the commencement in the production of petroleum products after the Christmas break. We want to thank Nigerians for their patience and trust in the NNPC to deliver on our promise and mandate in the rehabilitation of our refineries.”

Lokpobiri noted that with the completion of the first phase of the refinery, the remaining refineries in Warri and Kaduna would follow.

“The mechanical part of the plant is completed and this is the beginning of not just the Port Harcourt refinery phases one and two, but the one for Warri and then the one in Kaduna, so that we will be able to benefit from this massive investment that the country has made,” the minister stated.

On his part, the Minister of State Petroleum Resources (Gas), Ekperikpe Ekpo, said the PHRC would produce cooking gas, adding that this would lead to  a reduction in the importation of the commodity.

He added, “In August when we came here, we were told that by December, this plant will come on stream, and today we have witnessed that. So I’m really impressed.

“And it is good news equally to LPG (cooking gas) users that as the refinery begins after Christmas, we will have sufficient supply of LPG, which will automatically reduce the imports at that level. So it is something to celebrate.“With the coming up onstream of this phase one, others will follow as well because the NNPC has fulfilled the first assignment, and I believe others will be completed on schedule.”

The Group Chief Executive Officer, NNPCL, Mele Kyari, explained that as of December 15, 2023, about 84.4 per cent of Area-5 Plant, a key component of the Port Harcourt refinery, and 77.4 per cent of the entire rehabilitation project had been completed.

He added, “This is just to announce to Nigerians that in fulfilment pf our pledge to bring on stream phase 1 of the PH refinery by the end of 2023 and the subsequent streaming of phase 2 in 2024, we heartily announce the mechanical completion and flare up of the refinery on the 20th of December 2023. This heralds the commencement of production of petroleum “We want to thank Nigerians for their patience and trust in the NNPC to deliver on our promise and mandate for the rehabilitation of our refineries.

“In our quest to ensure that this refinery is re-streamed to continue to deliver value to Nigerians, we made a promise that we will reach a mechanical completion of phase one of the rehabilitation project by the end of December and get the other plants running in 2024. Today, we have kept those commitments,” Kyari stated.

The GCEO commended the NNPCL’s staff and the EPCIC contractors for ensuring that the refinery achieved a significant milestone, adding that the second phase would be completed in the fourth quarter of 2024.

“We are done with phase one. We will complete phase two as promised within 2024, maximum – the last quarter of 2024,” he stated.

In his remarks, the Chairman, NNPCL Board, Chief Pius Akinyelure, described the milestone as historic, stressing that the board was proud of the staff and management of the refinery.

“We are just starting. We want to be at the highest level of production so that we will keep the prices of petroleum prices in the country stable in order to give comfort to our people and generate more revenue for our country,” Akinyelure noted.

The Managing Director, Port Harcourt Refining Company Limited, Ibrahim Onoja, said the facility was thoroughly rehabilitated to last the country for many decades.

“This plant you see is a renewed plant that will last Nigeria for decades. We can beat our chest and say we’ve come over 50 years and we’ll go another 50 years.

“This will give value to Nigeria, create jobs, provide feedstock for industries, revenue, foreign exchange, energy security, and more. Phase one of this refinery is 60,000 barrels per day, and the other one is 150,000bpd. So we have a complementary 210,000bpd refinery,” he stated.

Onuba, a chartered accountant, wrote in from Abuja.