The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has commenced the rehabilitation of the first phase of the 210,000 barrels per day capacity Port Harcourt Refinery complex. The rehabilitation is aimed at to ensure local sufficiency in refined petroleum products.
The Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Maikanti Baru, flagged-off the exercise at the complex which comprises the 60,000 barrels per day old Refinery built in 1965 and the 150,000 barrels per day, new Refinery, commissioned in 1989.
Firms in-charge of the rehabilitation
The project would be executed by Milan-based Maire Tecnimont S.p.A, in collaboration with its Nigerian affiliate, Tecnimont Nigeria. The rehabilitation exercise comes 19 years after the last Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) exercise of the country’s premier refining plant.
eni/NAOC will serve as Technical Adviser to support the Rehabilitation of PHRC, with NNPC/PHRC leveraging on eni’s extensive refinery supply chain network and warehouses to procure critical materials for the programme.
The timeframe for the phase-1 of rehabilitation is said to be for six months, and at the end, the Refinery complex should be able to reach 60 per cent capacity utilization, this is according to NNPC Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Ndu Ughamadu in a press release.
The first phase will involve detailed integrity check and equipment inspection of the Port Harcourt Refinery complex beginning from the end of March 2019. The integrity test comes as a forerunner to the second phase of the rehabilitation project which entails a comprehensive revamp of the complex aimed at restoring the refinery to a minimum of 90 per cent capacity utilisation.
Phase 2 of the project would be executed on an Engineering Procurement Construction basis by Tecnimont in collaboration with the original builders of the plant, JGC of Japan – but this is subject to the successful completion of the integrity checks.
About Maire Tecnimont
Maire Tecnimont S.p.A is listed on Milan Stock Exchange with interest in international engineering and construction, technology and licensing, and energy business development, adding that the Tecnimont group had operations in 40 different countries, numbering about 50 operative companies with a workforce of about 5,500 employees.
