Nigeria lets contract for Port Harcourt refinery revamp

The Nigerian government’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) has let a contract to a subsidiary of Maire Tecnimont SPA to provide a suite of services for the major rehabilitation of Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC) subsidiary Port Harcourt Refining Co. Ltd.’s (PHRC) Port Harcourt refining complex—which includes a 60,000-b/sd hydroskimming refinery and 150,000-b/sd full-conversion refinery—in Rivers state.

As part of the contract, Tecnimont SPA will deliver engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) activities for the full rehabilitation project, which aims to restore the complex to a minimum of 90% of its nameplate capacity, Maire Tecnimont said on Apr. 6.

Tecnimont will execute the project in phases over 24-32 months, with the final stage to be completed by yearend 2024, or 44 months from the April 2021 award date, according to the service provider.

Without disclosing further details regarding specific projects to be carried out during the rehabilitation, Maire Tecnimont confirmed overall value of the EPC contract at about $1.5 billion.

At the contract signing ceremony, Mallam Mele Kyari, NNPC’s group managing director, said NNPC will continue to move forward with the presidential mandate to fix the country’s federally owned refineries, which will include future works at NNPC subsidiaries Warri Refining & Petrochemcial Co. Ltd.’s 125,000-b/sd refinery in Delta state, and Kaduna Refining & Petrochemical Co. Ltd.’s 110,000-b/sd refinery in Kaduna state, according to a series of Apr. 6 posts to both NNPC’s and Kyari’s official social media accounts.

The PHRC rehabilitation contract award follows local Nigerian media reports of FEC’s February 2021 approval of the revised modernization plan at Port Harcourt, as well as NNPC’s 2020 announcement that it is planning to relinquish control of Nigeria’s three state-run refineries following completion of the long-planned program to rehabilitate and optimize processing capacities at the sites (OGJ Online, Apr. 14, 2020; Sept. 30, 2019; Dec. 21, 2016).

NNPC previously let a contract to Maire Tecnimont subsidiaries for previous rehabilitation works at the Port Harcourt complex (OGJ Online, Sept. 23, 2019; Apr. 3, 2019).