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When will this country mean more to us than individual selfish greed? Imagine that as we are still talking of the confusion called rehabilitation at the Eleme site of the Port Harcourt refinery complex, the NNPCL is coming up with another agenda which could best be described as diversionary. How come Nigerians even the best learned amongst us are been taken for granted like this?
The announcement that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) last week signed a contract with African Refinery Port Harcourt Limited (ARPHL) to build a new100,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery within the Port Harcourt Refinery and Petrochemical Complex in Rivers state, would have been an obvious welcomed development in the nation’s efforts to refine its crude oil but for the now familiar character trait of the nation’s apex oil concern which borders more on deception and half-truths.
First, is it not awkward that the NNPCL’s most preferred platform to announce to Nigerians about this ‘critical project’ decision was the national oil company’s X(tweeter) handle that indicated the Executive Director, Downstream of the NNPC, Dapo Segun, signed on behalf of the company
On its website, ARPHL described itself as “the special purpose vehicle incorporated for the specific purpose of co-locating the 100,000bpd crude oil refinery in Nigeria.”
This special purpose company also stated that by virtue of having the “most complete package” (whatever that means), it was declared the winning bidder for the Port Harcourt co-location project.
“Under the aforementioned MoU, we entered into an agreement with NNPC, whereby ARPHL will own and operate the 100,000 bpd refinery on 46 hectares of vacant land adjacent the PHRC ’s refinery complex, where we will benefit from direct crude supply from NNPC and access to other shared services, e.g. security, electricity, water, storage, jetty,” it added.
We may need to ascertain the real ownership of the space the co-locator is referring to as vacant: who actually owns the 46 hectares of ‘vacant’ land adjacent to the site of the Port Harcourt Refinery- the NNPC or Eleme/Okrika communities of Rivers state? This clarification is very crucial so people like us can appropriately take side(s) when the land dispute starts.
It would be recalled that the Port Harcourt refinery was shut down in March 2019 for the first phase of repair works after the government secured the service of Italy’s Maire Tecnimont to handle the scoping of the refinery complex, with Italian oil major Eni appointed technical adviser.
In 2021, NNPC Limited said repairs had started after FEC approved $1.5 billion for the project.
We still remember that the duo of Minister of State Petroleum Downstream (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri and the NNPCL boss, Mele Kyari told Nigerians in the third quarter of 2023 that “The Port Harcourt refinery would begin operations before the end of 2023, specifically in December. The Warri refinery, which is also being renovated, would begin refining crude oil to churn out petroleum products in February 2024 and then, Kaduna will come on stream towards the end of next year (2024).”
Recall also that the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari had on March 28 this year, told the Senate that the Port Harcourt refinery will begin to deliver refined petroleum products in two weeks, just as he assured Nigerians that the rehabilitation of the refineries would be completed on schedule.
He said the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt refinery had been completed, having passed its “completion mechanical procedure. The Mechanical Completion means that you are done with your rehabilitation work, now you are to test if this completion is okay.”
Brethren, It is now over four weeks going into the fifth week since the deadline elapsed and yet the Port Harcourt Plant has not started processing crude at whatever level.
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Truth be told, the flare start-off ceremony at the refinery by the Minister of State Petroleum Oil was a ruse. Quote me! It was performed to give the indication that the NNPC met its promised deadline to restart the plant.
As he said, “Just to announce to Nigerians the fulfilment of our pledge to bring on stream phase one of the Port Harcourt refinery by the end of 2023 and the subsequent streaming of phase two in 2024. We happily announced the mechanical completion and the flare start-off on the 20th of December 2023.”
This was what happen at that ceremony: Imported Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) was fed into the bottom of the flare channel to provide fuel to light the flare instead of the normal Flue gas produced from the refinery processes. This action allowed pictures of the flare to be taken, pretending that the refinery had started operations. The rehabilitation work was nowhere near being completed.
Remember what the immediate past Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva said few months to the end of the Buhari rule: “The Ministry of Petroleum Resources presented a memo on the rehabilitation of Port Harcourt refinery for the sum of $1.5 billion and it was approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC).
“So, we are happy to announce that the rehabilitation of the refinery will commence in three phases of 18, 24, and 44 months’ intervals. The first phase is to be completed in 18 months (one and half years from now) which will take the refinery to a production of 90 percent of its nameplate capacity.
“The second phase is to be completed in 24 months (two years from now) and the final stage will be completed in 44 months (almost 4years from then).”
This is second quarter 2024 we are still where we were a decade ago in the nation’s refining cock and bull story!
The tragedy of the current Nigerian downstream situation is that every single person that could have been defending our collective national interest in this matter is deeply involved in the ongoing racket either directly or by proxy. The presidency calls the shots, top managers of the NNPCL and its strategic business units, top National Assembly members are all neck-deep in the racket.
For decades, the refineries and fuel importation business plus the crude-for-product swap deals have been Nigeria’s biggest lottery, the draw with which the NNPC (L) keeps its cronies- politicians and the government in power.
From knowledge of the Nigeria oil sector especially the refining subsector and the latter introduced ‘fuel-importation sub-subsector’, none of the existing NNPCL-owned refineries is ever going to work optimally in this country except those involved in the fuel importation and crude-for-product swap arrangement are exposed and publicly punished. The story of the refineries will remain the same- beclouded by confusion except this niche in our nation is dealt with thoroughly and frankly.
Anything other than that, we are just merely dancing around the problem. God bless Nigeria!
(IFEANYI IZEZE: iizeze@yahoo.com; 234-8033043009)
