NNPCL Seeks Private Entities Interested In Operating Port Harcourt Refinery

Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) is seeking to transfer the operations of the Port Harcourt Refinery to private entities in order to boost its efficiency and productivity.

Gatekeepers News reports that in an expression of interest notice issued by the NNPCL on its website and shared on its X (formerly Twitter) page on Monday.

The Port Harcourt Refinery, which is in Rivers State, is one of the four refineries owned by the NNPCL. The refinery has a refining capacity of 210,000 barrels per day (bpd) but has been bedevilled by years of neglect and operational challenges.

The NNPCL stated that it is looking for “reputable and credible Operations & Maintenance (O&M) companies to operate and maintain one of its refineries, Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC), to ensure reliability and sustainability towards meeting the nation’s fuel supply and energy security obligations.”

According to NNPC, the operations and maintenance contract scope of work includes refinery business processes; long-term and short-term production/operations planning; production and operations execution; monitoring, reporting and optimisation of operations; maintenance planning (short term); maintenance execution; health and safety; and environmental management.

Others, NNPC said, are reliability and inspection; process and controls engineering; quality control, quality assurance and laboratory; specialist engineering; environmental management; minor projects; non-hydrocarbon procurement; sub-contractor management; inventory and warehouse management; and turnaround maintenance planning and execution.

NNPC said applicants must present audited accounts for the past four years (2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022) that include income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement.

“Provide evidence of your company’s latest credit ratings and the name of the rating agency,” the oil company said.

“Demonstration of a minimum average annual Turnover of at least $2 billion USD for the financial years ending: 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively.”

The oil company said it is important for applicants to register “your company for participation in this EOI process in the NNPC Ltd /Nipex Tender process portal”.

“All interested bidders who do not provide as requested in Section 5.1 (a- e) above as at 12:00 Midnight, Monday 29th January 2024 will no longer have access to submit the mandatory details,” NNPC said.

“Individual bidders would be duly notified on th the NNPC Ltd /Nipex Tender Portal.

“Thereafter, the bidder would have access to make their submissions on the NNPC Ltd/Nipex Tender Portal.

“All submitted EOIs should be titled “EOI for the Provision of Operations and Maintenance (0O&M) Services for NNPC Limited Port-Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC).”

The energy firm said all documents should be submitted online through the electronic NNPC Ltd /NipeX tender portal on or before 12:00pm on February 26, 2024.

“The EOI shall be opened virtually, following the deadline for EOIs submission at 12:00 Noon on Monday 26th February 2024, using the NNPC Microsoft Teams. Bidders who have submitted their EOls and external observers shall be invited to attend the virtual live stream bid opening session,” NNPC said.

“In the event of any unscheduled holiday on the EOI submission date, the new deadline for submission of EOIs will be on the next working day. Accordingly, EOI Closing Date/time shall be extended to the next working day and time.”

At the deadline for expression of interest (EOI) submission, NNPC said bidders will no longer be able to access the Nipex portal to submit their bid.