Lagos — The Port Harcourt Refining Company Ltd (PHRC) at Alesa-Eleme requires about $174.26 million to successfully drive its four-year restoration plan, according to Mr Bashir Abdullahi, its ManagingDirector.

Abdullahi made this known in Port Harcourt in a presentation to the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mr Mohammed Barkindo, who visited the plant.

The presentation, detailing the four-year (2009-2012) but phased re-engineering of the refinery for operational efficiency, was made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) at the weekend.

According to Abdullahi, 13 broad-based projects had been lined up for execution under the short, medium and long terms.With the required level of funding, he said, the projects would have been completed by 2012 in the long run, including the replacement of cooling towers in Fuels Plant-1 (FP1), replacement of FP2, construction of 2x30 MW Gas turbines and boiler rehabilitation and replacement.

Others included the replacement of DCS/field instrumentation upgrade, procurement of two new air compressors and overhaul of three existing ones, rehabilitation of demin plants 1 and 2 and modernisation and expansion of fluid catalytic cracking units (FCCU).

Abdullahi listed other projects as the rehabilitation and upgrade of WWT plant, enhancement of security in the refinery and jetty, replacement of tank gauging system, rehabilitation of New Port Harcourt Refinery (NPHR)/Old Port Harcourt Refinery (OPHR) tanks (tank farm) and rehabilitation of cooling water distribution system.

He listed other problems to include issues of security and community relations that needed to be addressed, referring to the insecurity in the Niger Delta, reluctance of vendors, licensors and experts to come to Port Harcourt and closure of outsourced maintenance facilities for refurbishment of major equipment.

He also spoke about delays and high cost of third party services from Eastern Europe and India as well as high security cost on the Joint Task Force (JTF), third party security and community surveillance guards.

He said other constraints were encroachment on pipeline right of way, increased frequency of pipeline vandalism, rising number of structures and unsafe handling of petroleum products along refinery access roads and trespass into tank farm and pipelines.

Abdullahi identified manpower shortage, including difficulty in getting quality personnel due to insecurity, high attrition rate due to age-related disengagement and long period required to train new recruits and critical staff to acquire specialisd industry skills.

In a remark, Barkindo said the ongoing restructuring of the NNPC and its SBUs was targeted at making the establishments more productive by turning them from cost-centres to profit-centres.He said the report of the Oil and Gas Implementation Committee (OGIC) recommended autonomy and self-accounting status for the SBUs to be able to operate independently outside the control and management of the NNPC.