By Damilola Aina
The newly rehabilitated Port Harcourt refinery has commenced export of refined petroleum products, selling its first cargo of low sulfur straight-run fuel oil to Dubai-based Gulf Transport and Trading Limited.
A report by a data and analysis company, Kpler, on Friday stated that the refinery started up its Coolant Distribution Unit 1 this week, with its estimates pinning operations at 20,000 barrels per day.
It stated that the 60,000bpd facility, currently operating at 70 per cent capacity, sold its first low sulfur straight run fuel oil cargo, pointing to a gradual and phased start-up of operations.
The ship will load 15,000 metric tons of the product, which translates to about 13.6m litres.
The report said, “Port Harcourt sold its first LSSR cargo, with a sulfur content of 0.26 per cent wt and a 0.918 g/ml density at 15°C, to Dubai-based Gulf Transport & Trading Limited. Loading onboard the Wonder Star MR1 in the coming days. The 15,000 metric tonnes cargo, sold at a $8.50/t discount to the NWE 0.5 per cent benchmark on an FOB basis.”
While this will have a limited impact on global VLSFO benchmarks for now, the latest development changes market realities for Atlantic Basin exporters of clean products into Nigeria and the wider region.
Kpler reported that the development would help displace imports from traditional suppliers in Africa and Europe, as Nigeria’s falling clean product imports are already decreasing, dragging imports into the wider West Africa region lower as well.
It added that the LSSR was produced from the 60,000 bpd section of the refurbished Port Harcourt refinery following a November 26 announcement that it began processing crude oil.
“LSSR production from this train is expected to steady at about 60,000 metric tonnes per month over the near term. The larger 150,000 bpd section of the refinery, however, remains offline and will start up after production from the first phase stabilizes,” it noted.
Continuing, the report said a potential ramp-up to full capacity of 210,000 bpd would weigh on fuel imports to the country after Dangote’s rising refinery runs already pressured gasoline imports to multi-year lows since October.
NNPC stated on 26 November that CDU 1 at Port Harcourt had started operations, also claiming that product exports via trucks had commenced.
Kpler’s in-house crude stocks data corroborates that test runs have been ongoing, with PPMC inventories dropping from 1.5m barrels in August to 1.3Mbbls in October to around 1Mbbls in November (current crude inventories would enable refinery runs of around 30 for one month).
“While CDU 1 has a nameplate capacity of 60,000 bpd, we estimate the unit to only run around 20,000 bpd for the rest of the year, potentially reaching full capacity in Q3 2025, contributing to total Nigerian crude runs of 420,000 bpd in September 2025.
“Port Harcourt’s second CDU could start test runs in late 2025, pushing the refinery’s crude intake to 150,000 bpd in December 2026 and total Nigerian throughput to above 700 kbd.
“As a simple refinery (NCI 4.8) with one 60,000 bpd CD, six kbd Reformer and without an operational FCC (of which we expect the ramp up in late Q3 2025), we estimate that Port Harcourt’s product output will be mainly gasoline, straight run gasoil and fuel oil.
“This implies that by Q4 2025, the plant could supply some 24,000 bpd of fuel oil, 15,000 bpd of gasoline, 15,000 bpd diesel, 6,000 bpd jet, and some minor volumes of LPG. If CDU 2 were to fully start up, moving capacity to 210,000 bpd and including all secondary units (which we don’t expect before Q2 2026), product output could theoretically move to 82,000 bpd gasoline, 78,000 bpd diesel, 20,000 bpd jet and 18,000 bpd residue (fuel oil, bitumen, slurry).
“We project Port Harcourt to run almost entirely on Nigerian crude grades as it is owned by NNPC, and we expect most of the fuel volumes to be consumed by the domestic market and only fuel oil output contributing to product exports,” It noted.
The full ramp-up of the refinery will further improve West African gasoline balances and weigh on fuel imports to Nigeria, a dynamic that is already at play, with October and November seeing gasoline imports to the country drop to the lowest levels in seven years.
Efforts to get comments from the national oil firm on the latest development proved abortive as the NNPCL spokesperson, Femi Soneye, didn’t respond to enquiries. (Punch)