Port Harcourt refinery operations to commence before end of first quarter after three months delay
The Federal Government has announced that the Port Harcourt Refinery, whose operations were originally planned to begin in December 2022, will now begin before the end of the first quarter of 2023.
On Monday in Abuja, during the Federal Ministry of Information’s series on the President Muhammadu Buhari administration scorecard, Mele Kyari, Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, revealed this.
Giving reasons for the delay, Kyari said, “The promise was to start the fuel plant, which is the 60,000 barrels per day (bpd) component of this activity by the last quarter of 2022, but it is not practical. So, we will start it off in the first quarter of 2023, otherwise, every other process is ongoing.”
Giving further details on the state of the refinery, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, said, “The rehabilitation of the 60,000 barrels per day is being completed and it is going to be started in the first quarter.”
Sylva mentioned the Dangote refinery, with a 650,000 barrel per day capacity, and modular refineries all throughout the country as contributors to the FG’s projected 2023 end to the importation of petroleum products into the nation.
He asserted that a number of modular refineries, including the Waltersmith modular refinery, in which the NNPC has a 30% stake, and the Duport modular refinery, in which the NNPC also has a 30% stake, would also begin operations in 2023, promising a significant decrease in the importation of petroleum products.
Sylva added that petroleum product pricing in Nigeria should be determined by the market like in other nations where products sell for more than Nigeria’s present official PMS price at N180 per litre, which was mentioned by Sylva as being unsustainable fuel subsidies.
