…Strategic Equipment Damaged....CONTINUE READING THE ARTICLE FROM THE SOURCE
Some vandals have been arrested while carrying out an operation at the Port Harcourt Refinery in Rivers State.>>>CONTINUE FULL READING HERE
Some of the suspects intercepted at night were caught with various items like Motorised Valva (MOV), termination cable assembly and copper cables.
Other items include hack saws, pliers used for cutting cables and rubbing used to shroud stolen materials and other vital equipment.
The suspects were discovered to have pilfered other expensive equipment like armoured cables.
Videos seen by THE WHISTLER showed that two inches of long pipeline connections were used to illegally tap petroleum products to feed suspected bunkering stations, located outside a plant.
The pipeline has an estimated stretch of 800 kilometres illegally tapped from Indorama, a company based in Eleme, Port Harcourt.>>>CONTINUE FULL READING HERE
The vandals were said to have connected the pipes at a diversion on the Indorama line close to the Port Harcourt refinery police station.
The suspects were said to have also stolen the anodes installed in a storage tank to protect the tank from corrosion.
Each storage tank contains at least 70 sacrificial anodes, each up to one meter in length and weighing 10-20 kilograms, welded to the bottom of the tank internally.
Storage tanks’ sacrificial anodes are made from highly-priced aluminium or magnesium alloys and hold great rewards to vandals if they succeed in their quest to cut and move the anodes to the black market.
The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd, Mele Kyari had last Monday assured that the Port Harcourt Refinery will begin operation by August this year.
Kyari said this during an interactive session with members of the joint committees of the National Assembly on Finance.
He added that in few months time, oil production level for the country will hit two million barrels per day as every measures have been put in place to achieve that target.
He said, “Mr. Chairman and members of the Joint Committee. Let me just give confirmation that NNPCL and the oil and gas industry is very critical in bringing a turnaround in our current economic situation, and we understand the importance of this. We are taking every step that is practical for us to achieve this..
“We have already seen growth in our oil and gas production because of certain actions that Mr. President personally took, and also the very mere truth that we have also declared a war on production activities, and this is yielding the required results.
“The combination of these two has now seen us restoring production in our country, and we believe that, as the Honorable Minister has said, we will soon hit the target of two million barrels oil production per day.
“I’m aware that there are several comments in the public space around refining business and domestic production, including production that will come from the commissioned Dangote refinery.
“Yes, this country, as we have said, will be a net exporter of petroleum products by the end of this year. We’re very optimistic that by December , this country will be a net exporter. That means a combination of production coming from us, and also from Dangote refinery and other smaller producing companies that we know are in line to do this.
“So, I can confirm to you, Mr. Chairman, that by the end of the year, this country will be a net exporter of petroleum products.
“Specific to NNPC refinery, we have spoken to a number of your committees, that it is impossible to have the Kaduna refinery come to operation before December, it will get to December. Both Warri and Kaduna but that of Portharcourt will commence production early August this year.”
THE WHISTLER had reported that following the mechanical completion of the Old Port Harcourt Refinery in December, last year, a total of one million barrels of crude oil has been supplied to the plant by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd as refining of petroleum products from the facility.
THE WHISTLER gathered that the one million barrels of crude oil were supplied to the refinery in two tranches with the latest coming in last Wednesday.
About 170 litres of refined petroleum products can be obtained from a barrel of crude oil. This implies that the one million barrel supplied by the NNPC to the Port Harcourt refinery can provide an estimated 170 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol and other refined products.
The Newspaper further reported that the importation of Liquefied Petroleum Gas, popularly called cooking gas, would reduce as the refinery starts pumping out refined products.
THE WHISTLER’s investigations had also revealed that in preparation for commencement of refining of petroleum products, the license for the refinery had been issued by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority.>>>CONTINUE FULL READING HERE
