Port Harcourt Refinery begins full production of petrol, to reduce import by 40%

The New Port Harcourt Refining Company, PHRC 2, will this week begin full production of Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, popularly called petrol, after the completion of the rehabilitation of Area 3, where petrol, Liquefied Petroleum Gas, LPG, and other lighter products are produced. This will reduce the importation of fuel by 40 per cent when fully operational.

The 210,000 barrels per day capacity refinery had last month commenced preliminary production with Unit 1 producing largely Dual Purpose Kerosene (DPK) and Automotive Gas (AGO), otherwise known as diesel.

Disclosing this to newsmen over the weekend, Chairman of the Chrome Group, Sir Emeka Offor, revealed that since 2000 when Chrome Consortium successfully completed the Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of Port Harcourt Refinery, his company had remained in the refinery to provide massive maintenance services because of the satisfactory completion of the TAM.

The multi-billionaire business mogul stated that his company was the lead partner in the consortium that carried out the TAM, which was certified by Shell Manufacturing Services, an international company that supervises TAM in refineries.

He stated that as a life-running plant, the refinery is supposed to have TAM every two years but noted that no TAM has been carried out since 2000.

Noting that since 2000, all the major activities, interventions and critical jobs in Port Harcourt Refinery have been done by Chrome, Offor pointed out that the fact that the refinery is still running today is partly because of the jobs being done by Chrome.

He stressed that his company had also done some intervention jobs in Kaduna Refinery, adding that the major Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit (FCCU) heater in Kaduna refinery was rehabilitated by Chrome Oil on time and on schedule.