Perhaps, a stronger official endorsement has come from the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF), for Nigeria to adopt the building of modular refineries as solution to end its current energy crisis, which has further been compounded by U.S shale boom that threw up falling demand and an attendant dwindling international market prices for crude oil.
A modular refinery is a refinery whose parts or equipment are constructed in modules, designed to be transported quickly and easily anywhere in the world, and comes in a variety of sizes, with capacities that range from 500 to 20,000 barrels per day.
Many petroleum and energy experts have been advocating for Nigeria to move on with building modular refineries in parts of the country, in order to solve recurring agony from petroleum products shortages, which lead to occasional downtimes among companies and industries.
“With plunging crude prices, we should think differently, try something different, otherwise we will continue to obtain the same results as before. It is, therefore, time to explore and test the idea of modular refineries at strategic locations of the country, to increase internally generated revenue and reduce fuel scarcity. Nigeria has a name plate refining capacity of 445,000 BOPD and produced only 95,300 BOPD of products in 2012, and has for years been heavily dependent on imports from outside,” stated Godwin Igwe, director of Centre for Gas, Refining and Petrochemicals (CGRP), Institute of Petroleum Studies, University of Port Harcourt, at an expert presentation.
Interestingly, Neeka Jacob, PhD, an engineer, and head of Research and Documentation at the PTDF, stated while speaking at the 1st international conference on Oilfield Chemistry and Flow Assurance, organized by the Emerald Energy Institute of the University of Port Harcourt, that the PTDF decided to join in the vanguard of promoting the adoption of modular refineries, as a good study of it reveals that it has the solution to the problem of fuel scarcity in the country.
According to Jacob, “our reason is that, if the government should invest in modular refineries, we will have enough supply of petroleum products, manpower development, equipment efficiency, equitable distribution of the workforce, and we will have value for money in the products, so that we will not be talking about importation of petroleum products.”
The PTDF director of research and documentation stated that, with modular refineries in place, Nigeria will be refining its products in-house, and there will be enough jobs for young Nigerians.
Neeka Jacob stated that to make things work in this direction, the PTDF is building a 3-helix structure in Research and Development in the country; that is the industry, the academic and government.
While lauding the academic content and the useful industry application of the papers presented at the conference, which according to him touched on all areas of the petroleum industry, he said the PTDF is also looking at applications that will spring up other industries and begin to earn additional income for government.
He said the success stories of IPS – UNIPORT is celebrated by the PTDF as a model.
In his paper titled “A New Paradigm in Nigerian University System: A Case Study of the Institute of Petroleum Studies (IPS) UNIPORT,” Mike Onyekonwu, a Professor, and director at IPS, said the old “Ivory tower” concept had isolated the universities from the society, which they are supposed to service. The result according to him, is that “our universities turned out unskilled and unemployable graduates.”
BEN EGUZOZIE
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