Lokpobiri: We’ve made substantial strides across all refineries under rehabilitation

Heineken Lokpobiri, minister of state for petroleum resources (oil), says the country has made substantial strides across all refineries under rehabilitation.

Lokpobiri made this known on Thursday in a statement on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter, after Port Harcourt Refinery Company (PHRC) stakeholders held the last refineries’ rehabilitation steering committee meeting for the year.

The PHRC stakeholders meeting had in attendance, Mele Kyari, group chief executive officer (GCEO) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited; Pius Akinyelure, NNPC’s board chairman; and Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, NNPC’s executive vice-president, upstream.

He said the scheduled meetings are critical to promoting creative collaboration and maintaining the outstanding progress made thus far.

“We remain optimistic, unwavering in our commitment to achieving set objectives and revitalizing our refineries for enhanced efficiency and productivity,” he said.

“The collective efforts of the committee and stakeholders fuel our confidence in realizing the envisioned transformation in the petroleum sector.”

During the meeting, Lokpobiri said the Port Harcourt refinery will commence work after Christmas.

NNPC COMPLETES MECHANICAL PHASE OF PORT HARCOURT REFINERY 

NNPC Limited announced the mechanical completion of rehabilitation work on the area 5 plant of the PHRC.

Rehabilitation work has been ongoing at the refinery for over two years.

In a statement by Olufemi Soneye, chief corporate communications officer, NNPC, the national oil company said it pledged to complete phase one (mechanical completion and flare start-up) of the old Port Harcourt refinery (area 5).

NNPC said 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, the Engineering, Procurement, Construction, and Installation have all been completed”.

“The mechanical completion signifies the closure of the Construction and Installation phases,” NNPC said. 

Speaking during an inspection tour of the rehabilitation project, which also coincided with the refineries’ rehabilitation meeting, Mele Kyari, NNPC group chief executive officer, said as of December 15th, 2023, 84.4 percent of area 5 plant — a key component of the refinery — and 77.4 percent of the entire rehabilitation project had been finalised.

“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 said.

In his remarks, Pius Akinyelure, chairman, NNPC board, described the milestone as “historic”.

“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 said.

On his part, Ekperikpe Ekpo, minister of state for petroleum (gas), said recommencing operations at the refinery will help the nation’s liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) industry, as LPG is a major by-product of the refinery.