Yemisi Izuora
The 210,000 barrels a day (b/d) Port Harcourt refinery, has been allocated three cargoes of domestic light sweet crude Bonny Light in April-May.
This follows report by traders, suggesting that any issues affecting receipts in February and March might have been resolved.
The refinery which restarted operations late last year following a revamp by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has been allocated a 950,000 bl cargo loading over 5-6 April and two 475,000 barrels shipments loading over 22-23 April and 1-2 May, traders said, citing the latest loading programmes.
All three cargoes are to be loaded by the NNPCL, the refinery’s operator, according to Argusmedia.
Market sources said last month that Port Harcourt’s February and March crude allocations had been cancelled with one of the sources saying a crude unit at the refinery was not functioning.
This was not confirmed by NNPCL but a source at the company has since told Argus that a 475,000 barrels shipment of Bonny Light had been due to be pumped to Port Harcourt before operations at the grade’s export terminal were briefly disrupted by a fire on the Trans Niger Pipeline (TNP) last week.
The Renaissance Africa consortium which recently took over operatorship of the TNP and the Bonny terminal from Shell said pipeline flows were restored on 19 March.
Port Harcourt which is designed to run Bonny Light was originally built as two refineries, and rehabilitation work has only been completed at one 60,000 b/d section.
Total loadings of Bonny Light have been revised to 209,000 b/d for April across seven cargoes and have been set at 202,000 b/d for May across the same number of cargoes.