Dilapidated Refineries Gulps Another N100 Billion in 2021 –NNPC

About N100 billion was spent to revamp the deteriorating refineries in the country last year, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has disclosed. 

It stated that N8.33 billion was expended on a monthly basis for the rehabilitation and maintenance of the refineries with dilapidated facilities.

NNPC made this known in a report reviewing the funds and performances of the oil firm throughout 2021, in Abuja on Sunday.

Investors King reports that the four refineries of NNPC– two in Port Harcourt, one in Kaduna and one in Warri need immediate refurbishing. 

The dilapidated state of the nation’s refineries has made its population rely greatly on the importation of refined petroleum products from other countries for over four years.

This has in turn resulted in the huge spendings on fuel subsidy recorded each year.

However, a massive rehabilitation has been embarked on at one of the refineries, Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC).

According to the financial status update of the rehabilitation of PHRC, the federal government has disbursed $98m and N17.2bn for its rebuilding.

The report further disclosed that “the government had made an initial payment of $194m, being the 15 per cent advance payment required for the rehabilitation of the facility, to Tecnimont SpA of Italy. The project was financed by an equity contribution by its sponsor and loan by lenders (AfreximBank).”

It noted that the Engineering, Procurement, Construction, Installation, and Commissioning contract prices amount to $1.397bn lump sum with $162m as a provisional sum.

The total sum of $1.559bn was approved by the Federal Executive Council for the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt refinery on March 17, 2021, after which work began last year. 

It was also disclosed that additional funds had been processed by the federal government to ensure the continued rehabilitation of the plant.