Monday, August 10, 2015

FIRS Realises N1.97trn Revenue At Half-year



Hope of petroleum products’ supply
stability is about to be accomplished as
the major contractor handling key
rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt
refinery, Chrome Oil Services, has assured
that importation of premium motor spirit
(PMS), also known as petrol, would drop
by about 40 per cent as critical unit of
the refinery begins operation this week.
The company is among other contractors
carrying out overhaul work at the facility
as government takes giant steps to
revamp the country’s four refineries in a
bid to address the lingering fuel scarcity.
The executive chairman of the group,
Emeka Offor, said that a critical
constituent of the refinery, the Fluid
Catalytic Cracking Unit (FCCU), where
vacuum gas oil (VGO) and heavy diesel oil
(HDO) are cracked to obtain more
valuable products, like FCC gasoline used
as PMS blend, and Light Cycle, as blend
component for low pour fuel oil (LPFO)
and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), would
resume full operations this week.
Offor confirmed to journalists that the
restoration work at the FCC has reached
98 per cent conclusion and will come on
stream before the end of the week. The
chairman assured that when it becomes
fully operational, the unit will concentrate
on the production of petrol which will also
go a long way in reducing the importation
of the product as well as resolve the
lengthened petrol scarcity.
He said that the lack of turn-around-
maintenance (TAM) of the existing
refineries in the country had contributed
to the unrelenting scarcity of fuel in
Nigeria.
“Over time, the refineries are working but
below installed capacity. The last TAM
was done in 2000 and this is exercise that
should be carried out every two years,”
Offor said, adding that the inability of the
refineries to refine at capacity further
complicated fuel supply situation across
major cities in the country.
He attributed the problem to vandalisation
of pipeline infrastructure which transports
crude oil to the refineries and the lack of
TAM to sustain product refining capacity
of the refineries.

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