As the Port Harcourt oil refinery becomes operational, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has finalized plans to transfer the government-owned refinery to private operators.
The NNPCL aims to engage reputable operations and maintenance companies to oversee the Port Harcourt Refining Company’s operations and maintenance, ensuring reliability and sustainability in meeting the nation’s fuel supply and energy security obligations.
In a statement on its website, the NNPCL outlined the contract scope, encompassing refinery business processes such as long-term and short-term production/operations planning, execution, monitoring, reporting, optimization of operations, maintenance execution, health and safety, environmental management, and minor projects. Interested companies are required to demonstrate a minimum average annual turnover of at least $2 billion USD for the financial years ending in 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022.
The NNPCL had previously initiated crude oil supply to the Port Harcourt refinery for testing purposes, and the Federal Government announced the mechanical completion of rehabilitation work on the Area-5 Plant on December 21, 2023, with the refinery set to refine 60,000 barrels of crude oil daily after the Christmas break.
The Port Harcourt Refinery, operational since 1965, is located in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta region, and in March 2021, the Nigerian government approved a GBP 1.08 billion ($1.5 billion) budget for the renovation and modernization of the refinery complex.