As the Port Harcourt Refinery plant comes to life, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has concluded plans to hand over the government owned refinery to private operators to management.

The NNPCL said it is seeking to engage reputable and credible operations and maintenance companies to operate and maintain the Port Harcourt Refining Company.

This, it said, was “to ensure reliability and sustainability towards meeting the nation’s fuel supply and energy security obligations.”

In a publication on its website on Monday, the NNPCL said the contract scope shall cover refinery business processes like long-term and short-term production/operations planning; production and operations execution; monitoring, reporting, and optimisation of operations; maintenance execution; health and safety; environmental management; minor projects and others.

NNPCL requested that interested companies must demonstrate “a minimum average annual Turnover of at least $2 billion USD for the financial years ending: 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively.”

The NNPCL had commenced the supply of crude oil to the Port Harcourt refinery to test-run it.

On December 21, 2023, the Federal Government announced the mechanical completion of rehabilitation work on the Area-5 Plant of the Port Harcourt Refining Company in Rivers State.

It said the first phase of the plant had been completed, as the facility would start refining 60,000 barrels of crude oil daily after the Christmas break.

The Port Harcourt Refinery, situated in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta region, has been in operation since 1965. The Alesa Eleme refinery complex is situated in Rivers State, Nigeria, approximately 25 kilometres east of Port Harcourt.