With the resurrection of the Port Harcourt oil refinery, plans have been made by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited to hand over the refinery to private investors/operators.
The NNPC gave reasons for their action which is to engage reputable and reliable operations and maintenance to manage and maintain the Port Harcourt refinery
The NNPC also stated that it was “to ensure reliability and sustainability towards meeting the nation’s fuel supply and energy security obligations”.
On their website on Monday, NNPC said that the privatisation contract scope will have to cover refinery business processes like long term and short term production planning; production and optimisation of operations; maintenance execution; health and safety of employees; environmental management; minor projects and so on.
NNPC requested 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.
On December 21, 2023 the federal government announced the mechanical competition of rehabilitation work on the Area-5 plant of the Port Harcourt refinery in Rivers state.
It is said that the first phase of the plant had been successfully completed, and the refinery will start refining 60,000 barrels of crude oil daily after the yuletide holiday.
The Port Harcourt refinery has been in operation since 1965, and is located in the oil-rich Niger Delta region.
In March 2021, the Nigerian government approved a $1.5 billion budget for the renovation and modernisation of the Alesa Eleme refinery, which is situated in Rivers state, 25 kilometers east of Port Harcourt.
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