The Natural Oil and Gas Suppliers Association of Nigeria (NOGASA ) says the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva has assured that Port Harcourt Refinery Company will begin crude oil refining before 2022 ends.
Mr Benneth Korie, the National President of the association, said on Monday in Abuja while speaking with newsmen.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) commenced the rehabilitation of Port Harcourt refinery in Rivers state in May 2021.
The federal executive council (FEC) approved the sum of $1.5 billion for the rehabilitation which is being handled by Tecnimont SPA, an Italian company, in three phases of 18, 24 and 44 months.
The PHRC operates two refineries; the old refinery with a capacity of 60,000 barrels per stream day (bpsd) and new refinery with an installed capacity of 150,000 bpsd.
The two refineries bring the Port Harcourt refinery’s combined crude processing capacity to 210,000bpsd.
The NOGASA president however said with this development, the price of petroleum products would go down, adding that the refinery had been under maintenance, and would definitely come up in production once operation began.
“But we have assurance from the Minister of Petroleum Resources that the Port Harcourt refinery will start working this December, definitely between now and ending of Jan. 2023.
“After Port Harcourt, other refineries including Warri and Kaduna will come up because work has been seriously going on there.
“Then you will see that prices of all the petroleum products will go down on its own because there is a difference between importation of products and loading from our refineries,” he said.
He said the refinery would blend Automative Gas Oil (AGO), PMS, DPK, Jet A1 and other products.
He decried the delay and cost of distribution of products because of loading from the depot, adding that once the refineries began operation, importation of petroleum would stop and the trucks would be loading directly from the refineries.
“Formerly trucks used to load from refineries but now paid Vessels spend 10 to 14 days to load product from depots instead of one day, marketers and transporters are suffering and sacrificing a lot in the bid to distribute products,” he said.
