The National President of the Nigerian Society of Chemical Engineers, Tony Ogbuigwe, has explained that the Port-Harcourt Refinery, contrary to criticisms and claims from several publications, is indeed up and running, and is producing petroleum products.
Ogbuigwe said this in an interview with Arise News yesterday, where he clarified that the refinery is coming up in stages, and though it is not yet fully on stream, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) is working to send out products, and at the same time, ramp up the production capacity of the refinery.
He said: “The truth of the matter is that the Port-Harcourt refinery- the area 5 of Port-Harcourt refinery is running, and it is indeed running.
Port-Harcourt Refinery has two parts- there is the old refinery and the new refinery. The old refinery is the one that has been brought back into operation. It is running, we can confirm that it is running.
“We have made contact with our colleagues, professional chemical engineers who are on the ground, and they have confirmed that the refinery is indeed running.
Products are being produced from the old refinery, and those products are being blended to give the PMS that we consume in our cars, and diesel oil which we consume in trucks, and which some of us use in our generators as well.
Those products are indeed being produced. Kerosene is also being produced, and that is the truth.”
Shedding more light on the refinery’s production process, Ogbuigwe explained that the production is being brought up in stages as he said:
“Exactly as you referred to the Dangote refinery, it had to be brought up in stages. It’s exactly the same thing that is happening in the PortHarcourt refinery. Crude oil comes into a refinery and goes into what is called the crude distillation unit.
There, there is the distillation in the column and products come out from the column at various levels. From the top is gas, which eventually goes to give you your cooking gas.
