Just a month after the commencement of operations at the 60,000-barrel-per-day Port Harcourt Refinery, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has announced that the 125,000-barrel-per-day Warri Refining & Petrochemicals Company (WRPC) in Warri, Delta State, is now operational.
NNPCL Group Chief Executive Officer, Mele Kyari, made the announcement during a tour of the facility on Monday.
A video posted by Channels TV showed Kyari addressing a tour group that included Farouk Ahmed, the CEO of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority.
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Kyari explained that the inspection was intended to showcase the progress made at the refinery. While acknowledging that repairs are not yet fully completed, he confirmed that operations have begun. “We are taking you through our plant. This plant is running.
Although it is not 100 per cent complete, we are still in the process. Many people think these things are not real. They think real things are not possible in this country. We want you to see that this is real,” Kyari said.
Located in Ekpan, Uwvie, and Ubeji in Warri, the petrochemical plant produces 13,000 metric tonnes per annum (MTA) of polypropylene and 18,000 MTA of carbon black. Originally commissioned in 1978 and now managed by NNPCL, the WRPC was built to supply markets in Nigeria’s southern and southwestern regions.
The mechanical completion of the facility had been initially scheduled for the first quarter of 2024, according to NNPCL spokesperson Olufemi Soneye. “Warri should be done by Q1 (first quarter) 2024,” Soneye had stated earlier.
The WRPC is one of Nigeria’s four refineries, alongside the Port Harcourt Refining Company (both the old and new facilities) in Rivers State and the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company in Kaduna State.
