The Management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation on Wednesday said the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries have been successfully re-streamed after a nine-month phased rehabilitation exercise conducted by its in-house engineers and technicians.
The corporation in a statement revealed that both plants have commenced preliminary production of petroleum products after successful test-runs, noting that while PHRC is ramping up its operation to about 60 percent of its 210, 000 barrels per day name plate capacity, WRPC production is projected to hit 80 percent of its installed 125, 000 bpd capacity.
The NNPC said the PHRC is projected to boost the nation’s local refining capacity with a product yield of 5million litres of petrol per day, while WRPC would contribute 3.5 million litres of petrol to local refining capacity.
Providing insight into the rehabilitation exercise, the NNPC noted that it had to adopt the phased rehabilitation strategy after the Original Refinery Builders (ORB) who were initially contacted for the project came up with unfavorable terms.
“Though a decision was taken in 2011 to rehabilitate all the refineries using the ORB of each of the refineries, we were impelled to switch strategy after the ORBs declined participation and nominated some partners in their stead who came up with outrageously unfavorable terms,” the corporation stated.
