The restoration of the 60,000 BPD refinery is being completed and will begin by Q1 2023 as promised, according to Minister of State for Petroleum Timipre Sylva.
Sylva disclosed this on Monday in Abuja while providing an update on the Port Harcourt refineries as part of the ministry of petroleum resources’ 2022 scorecard.
He remarked, “The 60,000 barrels per day rehabilitation is finished and it will start in the first quarter.
The minister also disclosed that Dangote Refinery’s crude oil sourcing agreement with NNPCL was already complete. However, the modular refineries were still haggling over the stock contracts in an effort to start refining.
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He clarified that in order for the finished private refineries to start producing, a feedstock guarantee is required.
When asked if the money used to pay subsidies up until that point would have been sufficient to build new refineries, he responded that possibly when the subsidy assistance is lifted, the government could use the money to create new infrastructure, such as refineries.
Mallam Mele Kyari, Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), explained why the Port Harcourt refinery rehabilitation project was taking longer than expected to complete: “The total rehabilitation of the refinery will take 42 months from the date of the award of the contract.
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We do refinery rehabilitation in phases, as is customary, and we pledged to begin the polyplastic activity at 60,000 barrels per day and finish it by the last quarter of 2022.
“However, it was impractical. Nevertheless, we’ll begin it in the first quarter of 2023. Otherwise, all other processes are in motion.
