Warri Refinery to Resume Production in November

According to reports by Leadership/NAN, the Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr Emmanuel Kachikwu, has disclosed in an official visit to WRPC in Ekpan, near Warri in Delta State, that the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company (WRPC) would resume production in November, 2015. 

Dr. Kachikwu, who assumed office in August 2015, has informed that the refinery stopped production temporarily to enable authorities carry out routine maintenance on some of its facilities. The GMD said that there had been no serious maintenance on the plants for about 15 years, adding that it had adversely affected the efficiency of the refinery.

The GMD said “WRPC was not shut down because of a lack of crude oil supply nor was crude oil not supplied because the refinery was down; the two are different things altogether”. “The Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) unit had a problem and that is why it was shut down. However, they are working assiduously on it”. “By the end of first week of November, the WRPC will be back,’’ he said. “The reality is that for over 10 and 15 years, no serious maintenance has been done on the plants,’’ he added.

Kachikwu also raised a serious concern noting that most of the pipelines experienced frequent vandalism, and they were already weak owing to the fact that they were over 40 years old. 

Also he stressed the fact that an aggressive security approach would be adopted in tackling security challenges in the corporation’s operations.

Power Gencos Now Receives 876 mscuf of gas from NGC

The Group Managing Director (GMD) of NNPC, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, has submitted a preliminary report on the recent activities at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to President Muhammadu Buhari. 

Details of the report shows that the NNPC through one of her subsidiaries; the Nigerian Gas Company (NGC), now supplies up to 876 million standard cubic feet (mscuf) of gas per day to the country’s power sector, ThisDay reports.

Gas pipeline vandalism and regular cuts in flow which has resulted in epileptic power situation in the past has now been reduced, thus significant improvement of gas supply from 630mscuf to 861mscuf day to the power plants as recently disclosed by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), has resulted in a more steady power supply across the nation.

The TCN which recently recorded a peak power generation of 4748MW in August 24, 2015, had stated that the country’s generation capacity can be pushed to further higher levels given the fact that fuel supply to the generators is now stable and adequate.

Epic Group to Build 107,000bopd Capacity Refinery in Bayelsa

As part of the current efforts by the FG to reduce the volume of imported refined petroleum products, promoters of a privately owned refinery in Nigeria, currently disclosed plans to commence building a 107,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery in Okporoma, Southern Ijaw Local Government of Bayelsa State, according to reports by Business Day.

The refinery, called Epic refinery, and operated by the Epic Refinery Group,  is expected to commence operations in the next 12 months and is licensed by the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) with licence number: PI/ES/MSF/6239/S.233/292, dated June 15, 2015.

Speaking to newsmen in Lagos recently, the president/CEO of the Epic Refinery Group, Barango Mathew Wenke Jnr, said that “Epic refinery in terms of production volume is the third in the list after Dangote’s refinery and another unnamed refinery and serious work is been put in place to bring the project alive in the next 52 weeks”.

Barango also informed that “the project team would be inaugurated soon in Abuja, after which the project team will start engaging the operators, DPR and the registered contractors in the company’s head office in Yenegoa, Bayelsa State, to decide the way forward, he said that the production volume will be divided into phases of 30,000bpd to enable the company run the refinery effectively he said”.

Furthermore, the Epic boss said that the Epic Group also has interest in setting up petro-chemical, power generation and agro-allied industries to produce fertilizer, among others, but the priority is also setting up the refinery first. He moreover added that the refinery would sit in between two oil producing giants; Shell and Agip, therefore would be assured of the quality of the raw materials.eHe Hhh

Expert Raises Hope of Nigeria’s Crude Export to The U.S

Crude oil export from Nigeria to the United States of America has received renewed hopes as plans are on ground to revive the trade. Paul Wihbey, president of Washington-based Global Water and Energy Strategy Team (GWEST) has informed the media as reported by The Guardian.

While delivering a lecture at the Emerald Energy Institute of the University of Port Harcourt, Wihbey gave a hint of Nigeria’s crude oil export resumption to the U.S, if Nigeria establishes credible political institutions, it will in the not too distant future replace Saudi Arabia as a key oil exporter to the United States.

An energy expert and former presidential adviser on petroleum matters, Dr. Emmanuel Egbogah, who chaired the lecture, also said that the recent visit of President Buhari to Washington was to hold talks with President Barack Obama for the resumption of significant volumes of crude oil exports to the U.S, as Saudi Arabia leans more towards China.

In addition, President Muhammadu Buhari has been advised to swiftly put in place a new strategic energy policy for export of Nigerian oil to new markets in Asia, while also urging government to resolve the crisis with India, which has expressed its willingness to increase its crude oil import from Nigeria to about $50billion annually.