P/Harcourt refinery to resume fully this week – Contractor

The major contractor handling key rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt Refinery and
Petrochemicals Company Limited, Chrome Oil Services has assured that critical units of
the refinery will begin operations within the week.

Speaking at a press briefing at the weekend, Executive Chairman of the company, Chief
Emeka Offor ,said that a critical constituent of the refinery, the Fluid Catalytic Cracking
Unit (FCCU), where Vacuum Gas Oil (VGO) and heavy diesel oil (HDO) are cracked to
obtain more valuable products, like FCC gasoline used as fuel blend and Light Cycle as
blend component for low pour fuel oil (LPFO) and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) will
resume full operations this week.
According to him, restoration work at the FCC has reached 98 percent conclusion and
that his company is expediting action to get it delivered as planned.
He promised that when it becomes fully operational, the unit will concentrate on the
production of petrol which will also go a long way of reducing importation of the
product as well as resolve the lengthened petrol scarcity.
Offor said lack of Turn-Around-Maintenance (TAM) of the existing refineries in the
country had contributed to the lingering scarcity of fuel in the land,saying ‘Over time,
the refineries are working but below installed capacity, the last TAM was done in 2000
and this is exercise that should be carried out every two years’.
He blamed incessant vandalisation of pipeline infrastructure which ferries crude oil on
the refineries and lack of Turn Around Maintenance(TAM) to sustain the requisite
product refining capacity of the refineries.