Nigeria - Warri.

The Warri refinery, located in the centre of the oil-producing region to the west of the Niger Delta, is the second oldest plant in Nigeria and is in the worst condition. The decision to build it was taken in 1971 and the plant was completed in June 1978. It had a 100,000 b/d capacity, which has since been raised to 118,750 b/d.

Now Warri's is the only refinery in operation, running at 87,750 b/d of crude oil. It was closed in May this year because of an attack on the crude oil pipeline supplying it. In June, the country's refining sector was only running at about 10,000 b/d of crude oil, at Port Harcourt whose operations were mostly suspended because of power supply problems.

Warri is the site of the Petroleum Training Institute, which prepares Nigerians for various specialised jobs in the petroleum industry, and of a petrochemical complex. The refinery's output has been designed mainly for Lagos and the nearby states, normally supplying both households and industrial users. Its pipeline system feeds crude oil to the Kaduna refinery, which is not operating at present (as explained on page 1).

On Aug. 13, 2002 NNPC awarded a N3 bn ($23m) turn-around and maintenance contract for the Warri refinery to DPN Entrepose Engineering of Italy. Work was finished in early 2003. But the refinery has since been closed several times, either because of technical problems at the plant or due to pipeline stoppages.

Normally, Warri gets crude oil by pipeline from the Chevron terminal at Escravos, in the Niger Delta, and from Shell's Quality Control Centre. The FCC unit at Warri underwent restoration work in 1991 (see background in Vol. 57, No. 6).

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