Nigeria’s minister of state for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva rose from an inspection of the moribund Eleme Port Harcourt in Rivers state last week, to announce that come the first quarter of 2023, the refinery will produce 60,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
The minister was on the inspection in tour in the company of chairman of Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), Senator Mrs. Magery Chuba Okadigbo, officials of the ministry of petroleum resources and top management of the NNPC.
He confirms that the award of the Engineering, procurement installation and construction (EPIC) of the rehabilitation of Port Harcourt refinery company commenced April last year, whereas Maire Tecnimont won the contract.
Speaking to newsmen in Port Harcourt, the minister gave his impressions of the work done in the refinery.
“You can see for yourself that work is on going here. We are quite happy. This project kicked off second quarter last year. Where they are now is quite impressive, they are on schedule. The commitment is to deliver sixty thousand (60,000) barrels per a day by this refinery by this time next year.
“We are all very happy with the pace of the work and the quality of the work that bus been done,” he said
On whether the crude Nigeria produces can serve the Port Harcourt refinery and Dangote refinery at the same time, he said; “We have enough crude in Nigeria to supply Port Harcourt refinery and Dangote refinery. The total capital of Port Harcourt Refinery is 210,000 barrels, the total capacity of Dangote refinery is 65,000 barrels per a day, and if you add the two together is still not up to one million barrels and Nigeria produce over one million barrels per a day,”
On how the money for rehabilitation work is sourced he said, ”We have already told the Nigeria public that the fund for this maintenance project is coming from the savings from the NNPC, from the federal government and form debt equity.
“At this point we are still working from the savings from NNPC, we have not had any need yet to access any debt for this project.
“Fund is not problem for this project. We have met all the milestone payment, right now they have submitted another milestone for payment. NNPC is evaluating it and am sure that they have the funds to pay for it,” the minister said.
He hinted that the federal government has started the modular refinery programme. He recalled that last year Mr. President commissioned one modular refinery project in Imo state and even one in Rivers state.
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