There are strong indications that the December production date for the commencement of operations at the Port Harcourt refinery may eventually not be achieved as Daily Sun findings have revealed.

The Port Harcourt refinery has been undergoing rehabilitation works since 2019 when NNPCL first awarded a $50 million contract to Tecnimont SPA and Tecnimont Nigeria Ltd (TNL) to carry out total integrity check and equipment inspections of the complex.

This was followed by the full backing of the Federal Government in 2021 when the Federal Executive Council(FEC) awarded contract for a project sum of $1.5 billion.

In August, Group CEO, NNPC Limited, Mr. Mele Kyari, in company of the by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, his counterpart , Minister of State for Petroleum (Gas), Hon. Ekperikpe Ekpo; and Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Ambassador Gabriel T. Aduda, had said during an inspection tour of the rehabilitation work that considering the level of progress recorded in the PHRC rehabilitation project, the plant will come back on stream by December this year.

Leader of the Concerned Youth of Eleme, Mr. Johnson Emere Mba-Ngie, in a telephone interview yesterday, lamented that several petitions written to the Senate, House of Reps, Army and NNPC over gross violation of the Local Content Act were not responded to.

Ngei said section five of the Community Guidelines of the Local Content Act, being implemented by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), especially in the area of employment, has been grossly violated.

He said a project engaging over 3,000 workers was meant to have a community liaison office but never had one because less than 100 community were engaged on the project.

Ngie said the December deadline was a ruse as the series of protests by community youths will continue to impact the project delivery date

He further alleged that the community was being shortchanged as job slots were being sold from N200,000 to N2 million depending on the position.

Ngei disclosed that the community had already staged three protests but the company remained adamant, especially as the contractors, Tecnimont, a subsidiary of Italy’s Maire Tecnimont.

In a similar vein, an Eleme community youth leader, Mr. Ken Eppie, told Daily Sun in a telephone interview yesterday, that due to issues around host community hostilities among other challenges, early hopes of the refinery coming on stream in December was not feasible. He alleged that the original builders of the refinery and the major contractor handing the rehabilitation works, Maire Tecnimont SPA, Eni SPA (a subsidiary of Nigerian Agip Oil Company) had in its wisdom decided to marginalise the community by not engaging the youths for some non-core technical aspect of the job. He said less than 0.01 per cent of youths in Eleme were considered for jobs in the refinery, a development which he said is a violation of the Local Content Act.

He explained that the youths have staged more than two protests to register its displeasure over the marginalization of the youths.

“Some sub-contractors have not been working. They were brought in to connect pipes but the pipes on ground did not match specifications. They have a valve or an elbow joint for, let’s say, 40 inches that ordinarily should be fitted by another 40 inches pipe, but they have 20 inches pipes. This is the situation as I speak with you but somebody will just address the media that the refinery will start in two months,” a source said.

A former refinery manager of Warri and Kaduna refineries, Engr. Babajide Soyode, had said he has issues with the NNPC over the work being done at the Port Harcourt refinery.

Soyode in a keynote address at the 6th international conference organised by the Centre for Gas, Refining, and Petrochemicals (CGRP) of the University of Port Harcourt demanded for handover of the refineries to private hands and never to import modular refinery units but to rather fabricate the components locally.

He insisted that the rehabilitation work going on and gulping billions of dollars would not yield standard grade of petroleum.

He said: “That is why I quarrel with the NNPC rehabilitation. It is a waste of money. The refinery cannot meet specification because what they produce has a lot of Sulphur. Dangote in Lagos will produce its own specification. It means two grades will be in the market.

“The Port Harcourt product will have a lot of Sulphur. You can’t run your car well in your truck with that grade.”

Rejecting rehabilitation instead of upgrade which would come at the same amount, the expert described what is happening as; “Atrophy of industrial imagination,” regretting that “our imagination is dead.” (Daily Sun)

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