By Adewale Sanyaolu

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 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.”

happney65:
When Obasanjo was telling them the other time that it cannot work they were ranting here and there. He knows better than these people that are nothing but propagandists

Sell off the damm thing and see it working. But make he be in the hands of the government,sorry it won't work from here till tomorrow

Pakute:

Try to dey use your brain abeg. why OBJ himself no sell am?, trying to sell refinery 3 or 4months before you leave office, na how to sell be that?. Nobody go buy any refinery if Government no fix am first.
This refinery will work, all dis SS youths protesting because of deve, dem no get sense, if to say Dangote refinery dey SS, e for never complete am today.

Pakute:

Try to dey use your brain abeg. why OBJ himself no sell am?, trying to sell refinery 3 or 4months before you leave office, na how to sell be that?. Nobody go buy any refinery if Government no fix am first.
This refinery will work, all dis SS youths protesting because of deve, dem no get sense, if to say Dangote refinery dey SS, e for never complete am today.

ivolt:

OBJ sold it but was reversed by Yaradua.
Privately owned or operated refinery is the only viable for us.

happney65:


Dangote and Otedola that brought it then we're fools abi? Come back again after December and see if it worked or not.

As for your last paragraph. I'm sure you didn't read the article to the end as you people find it difficult to read. All you do is to jump.

The complaining there wasn't about the youths complaining about local content alone. Maybe when you read it well you will know

Ode wey we no use him brain wey dey abuse someone

Pakute:

Which Dangote and Otedola?, who give dem lincense?

happney65:


"In the dying days of his administration in 2007, President Olusegun Obasanjo sold 51 percent of federal government's stakes in two of Nigeria's four ailing refineries to Bluestar Oil Services Ltd — a consortium floated by Dangote Oil, Zenon Oil and Transcorp Plc — for $761 million."

Google is your friend my friend

Pakute:

"In the dying days"... na why i dey tell you say make you dey try use your brain small. E never sell am and dem never buy am, all those money na just valuation. Nobody fit buy public asset in 3-4 months, we get procurement process, no be bend down select market we dey. Try dey get sense abeg.

happney65:
.

Pakute:

All dis story no dey neccessary, if Dangote and Otedola don get lincense, na for court dem for settle am if Yaradud try revoke their lincense but OBJ never complete the process within such a short period, na why Yaradua reverse am easy. Try dey think small abeg.

happney65:


You don't have any sense and it is pointless arguing with you. You read where Obasanjo said they already paid $750Million. Yaradua reversed the sale and they were refunded.

It is only if they were not paid their money back that you can go to court. But because you're a mumu and you don't know after God the next person is government. Government sells something and they are saying they are not selling again,you are talking otherwise.

Ode omo

Airlord2030:
Daily trust and fake news...

Why not wait till December before you start talking rubbish

ijustdey:


When you won't read..... Does that looks like daily trust abi your eyes is paining you

Mtchewwww