Port Harcourt Refinery To Begin Production Next Week Reduces Petrol Import By 40%

                            
Port Harcourt Refining Company,PHRC  is now ready for production of Premium Motor Spirit,PMS called petrol and will reduce importation of fuel by 40%,the refinery will be working 95% and will be working 95% of it's 210,000 per day capacity.
By next week  full production will resume when Chrome Oil Service Limited has completed the rehabilitation of Area 3   where petrol, Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and other lighter products are produced,This was disclosed to journalist at the weekend by Chairman of Chrome Group,Sir Emeka Offor.


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

The Project Manager of Chrome Group, Mr. Bombey Adigbara, also said that Chrome Oil Services Limited is one of the three contractors rehabilitating the Port Harcourt Refinery.

“In the new Port Harcourt Refinery, there are three basic units. The first is Area 1, that is, the Crude Distillation Unit (CDU), which is the entry point of Crude Oil. The equipment there will distillate the crude to generate Dual Purpose Kerosene (DPK), and Automotive Gas Oil (AGO). Some products of this first distillation are passed into the Vacuum Distillation Unit (VDU), which feeds the third unit, that is, Area 3, where PMS, LPG and other lighter products are produced. Unit 3 is where the crude is subjected to further cracking and distillation to get the lighter products. So, for you to get the refinery to run optimally, the two major units must be up and running up to throughput of 80 per cent. That has not been achieved over the years because of the TAM that has not been done. But we as Chrome has continued to sustain the plant to the level of production they are doing by carrying out maintenance of Area 1 and Area 3 all these years,” he said.

““At the moment, you must have heard that the refineries are undergoing some major repair work. We call it semi- TAM or Phase-Phase rehabilitation. That is why you hear that Port Harcourt Refinery has come on stream. Three companies participated in that major maintenance and we are still participating. The Number One is Chrome. At the moment, we are still doing the rehabilitation work because the refinery has started preliminary production, which means that it is Unit 1 that is producing. Unit 3 is being handled by Chrome and by next week, we will hand over that plant and the FCCU (Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit) will come up and if it comes up, you will start to experience high level of production of PMS in Nigeria because that is basically the PMS unit. So, all the critical jobs are being done by us,” Adigbara explained.