There are two refineries at Alesa-Eleme, near Port Harcourt in Nigeria's southernmost province, Rivers State. The refineries were originally known as Port Harcourt I and Port Harcourt II, but in 1993 the distillation column and tankage at Port Harcourt I was connected to the Vacuum unit and FCC at Port Harcourt II, and the operation of the refinery was integrated, and operated under one management.
In 1965 Shell/BP built Port Harcourt I as a topping and reforming refinery with a distillation capacity of 3 million mt/yr (60,000 bpd). In 1977 the Nigerian Government partially nationalised the oil industry, taking a 60% interest in all operations including the refinery.
Port Harcourt II was built as a complex refinery with a distillation capacity of 7.5 million mt/yr (150,000 bpd). It came on stream in 1989. It ran well until 1993 when frequent utility plant failures caused regular shutdowns that resulted in equipment damage. The situation deteriorated rapidly from 1994 when the military government cut NNPC’s “take” from the domestic sales price of oil products from 84% to 22%, causing a cash crisis, and a virtual halt to most maintenance work.
Crude supply to both refineries is 100% Bonny Light, supplied by pipeline from the Shell operated Bonny field.
Port Harcourt refinery performance has been consistently poor over the past 10 years, only rising above 50% on 4 occasions. From 1993 to 1998 the main problem was PH I that did not operate at all. After operating between 1999 and 2002 it has ceased operations since.
The Eleme Petrochemical plant, which was built adjacent to the Port Harcourt refinery in 1995, has an Olefin production capacity of 483,000 mt/yr, a Polypropylene capacity of 80,000 mt/yr, and a Polyethylene production capacity of 250,000 mt/yr. Like the refinery it has suffered from many technical problems, and has only functioned at l production levels of less than 40%.
The Warri refinery, located at Warri in Nigeria's Delta State, is a complex refinery with a distillation capacity of 6.3 million mt/yr (125,000 bpd). The refinery came on stream in 1978. It is managed jointly with a petrochemicals plant built in 1986 to produce 35,000 mt/yr of polypropylene and 18,000 mt/yr of carbon black.
The refinery crude supply is from the ChevronTexaco Escravos fields offshore Warri, and from onshore fields operated by Shell, ChevronTexaco and others. The pipeline to Kaduna refinery from the Chevron Escravos terminal passes through Warri refinery, and the crude supply to the two refineries is largely interlinked. Evacuation of products is by the refinery truck loading rack, by products pipeline, and by ship from the 2 refinery jetties about 1Km from the refinery. Loading and discharging at the jetties is limited to small vessels due to the 150 M LOA restrictions, and the shallow draft in the river and at the Escravos river bar.
Warri refinery suffered badly when the Abacha government cut the NNPC portion of the pump price from 83% to 22% in 1994. The Military government raised the price from N3.25/ltr to 11N/ltr in the face of massive Naira devaluation on the parallel market (the official rate was pegged at 22 until 1995), but kept the NNPC allowance the same. As most of the refinery maintenance costs were for imported spare parts, very little maintenance was carried out, and serious breakdowns -occurred. In 1998 the new civilian government ordered massive investment to remedy the problems, and a $200 million turnaround started in early 2000. This led to a significant improvement in throughput, although FCC performance has been erratic. In 2003 the refinery was caught up in the tribal unrest in the delta region, and the crude supply pipeline was cut by sabotage for much of the year so throughput was only around 30% capacity.
The Kaduna refinery, in northern Nigeria, is a complex refinery with a distillation capacity of 5.5 million mt /yr (110,000 bpd). The first 50,000 bpd unit, built in 1980, was a fuels unit designed to run light Nigerian crude. It was later revamped to 60,000bpd by the addition of a pre-flash unit. In 1982, a 50,000 bpd sour crude unit was built, designed to provide feed to a lube baseoil manufacturing plant, an asphalt plant, and an Linear Alkyl Benzate (LAB) plant. The plant was initially designed to run Venezuelan crude, but was later re-certified to produce lubes from Arab Light crude.
In 1987 the LAB plant was started up. The plant can manufacture 30,000 mt/year of LAB, 15,000 mt/year of benzene, and 30,000 mt/year of kero solvent, but has not operated since 1998. A drum plant was also installed, and a 6,000 bpd asphalt blowing unit.
The refinery has been plagued by technical malfunctions and breakdowns, and suffers from being in a location at the end of an insecure pipeline that is remote from the crude supply. In July 1997, after many years of low throughput, the refinery suffered a total shutdown following a serious fire, and did not restart until 1999.
In 1997 a major contract valued at $215 million was awarded to Total International to handle repair of specific parts of the refinery and to rebuild the depleted spare parts inventory. This project was fraught with difficulties for Total resulting from exaggerated expectations, diversion of funds, and numerous local problems. Both CDU’s restarted in 1999. However there has been no regular sour crude supply since 1992, and since 1998 the sour crude unit has not operated due to lack of crude feed.
The sweet crude unit operated reasonably well between 1999 and 2002, but a fire in a crude heater in October 2002 caused a capacity loss. In 2003 throughput is estimated to be around 30% of capacity, mainly due to problems on the crude pipeline. The FCC has operated at less than 10% capacity since 1999.
A 500KM pipeline from Warri refinery supplies the crude to KPRC. Most of the sweet crude is sourced from the ChevronTexaco Escravos fields, but about 20,000 bpd comes from the Ughelli field that is supplied via a spur that joins the line north of Warri refinery. The pipeline crosses a number of rivers and other obstacles, and is constantly being ruptured by both natural and man-made causes. The Arab Light sour crude is imported through an SBM at Escravos (currently out of service) into NNPC constructed storage tanks behind the ChevronTexaco facilities. Prior to 1992 the supply of Arab Light crude was supplied in exchange for Forcados, and this contract was much sought after by traders.
During political unrest in the delta in 2003, the pipeline from Escravos to Warri was sabotaged and blown apart in many places. NNPC ordered repairs to the line, but it was out of commission from April to December, and then had further problems. The refinery can still receive small quantities of Ughelli crude, but this only allows it to operate sporadically.