Abuja, Nigeria
Following the completion of the first phase of the Port Harcourt Refinery, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has announced its plans to hand over the government refinery to private operators.
The national oil company said it is seeking to engage a reputable and credible company to operate and maintain the Port Harcourt Refining Company.
According to NNPCL, the move was “to ensure reliability and sustainability towards meeting the nation’s fuel supply and energy security obligations.”
This was contained in a publication on its website on Monday, the NNPCL said the contract scope shall cover refinery business processes like long-term and short-term production/operations planning; production and operations execution; monitoring, reporting, and optimisation of operations; maintenance execution; health and safety; environmental management; minor projects and others.
As part of the requirements, NNPCL noted that interested companies must demonstrate “a minimum average annual Turnover of at least $2 billion USD for the financial years ending: 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively.”
The NNPCL had commenced the supply of crude oil to the Port Harcourt refinery to test-run it.
A few days before to end of 2023, the Federal Government announced the mechanical completion of rehabilitation work on the Area-5 Plant of the Port Harcourt Refining Company.
It said the first phase of the plant had been completed, as the facility would start refining 60,000 barrels of crude oil daily after the Christmas break.
The Port Harcourt Refinery came into operation in operation 1965 but failed to contribute local refining of petroleum in the county.
In March 2021, the Nigerian government approved a GBP 1.08 billion ($1.5 billion) budget for the renovation and modernisation of the refinery complex.
