Challenges Associated With Management Operations In Nigerian Refining Sector

Chapter 1: Introduction

Petroleum oil refinery is considered as the industrial process plant, which incorporates various activities for processing and refining petroleum oil in various necessary products. These products include liquefied petroleum gas, kerosene, heating oil, diesel fuel, gasoline as well as petroleum naphtha (Giwa-Osagie and Ehigiato 2015). The oil refining industry is considered as one of the most popular and leading sector in all over the world. Despite of its continuous growth, the refinery sector has been plagued through a number of issues and challenges in throughout the world. Moreover, the contemporary competitive society is highly focused on creating a most effective and significantly efficient operation in the refinery sector (Ambituuni et al. 2014). In this context, the current research has been focused on identifying and evaluating the challenges associated to the management operation in Nigerian refining sector.

Background of Refining Sector in Nigeria

It has been noted that the Nigerian petroleum industry is considered as the largest sector in the African continent. It has five refineries, which are sanctioned by the government. These refineries is capable of refining a sizable capacity of 456,000 b/sd. These refineries are Niger Delta Petroleum resources Ltd (NDPR), Kaduna Refining & Petrochemical Co. Ltd. (KRPC), Warri Refining & Petrochemical Co. Ltd. as well as Port Harcourt refining Co. Ltd. (PHRC) (Mamman 2014). The Nigerian refining industry is undergoing through development stage. The rate of the refinery utilization has not yet exceeded 20%. It has been also observed that the refining sector of Nigeria has been plagued from various issues and challenges. For example, the state-owned refineries would not be able to meet the demands of finished fuels in the local region despite of running at full capacity (Ambituuni et al. 2014). Considering this immense demand in the local market, the Nigerian refining sector needs to undergo through various rehabilitation as well as modification. The Nigerian refining sector also needs to eradicate the constant challenges that have plagued the refining sector for a long period (Popoola et al. 2015).

What is the issue?

The refining sector in any part of the world considered much beyond than just a technical operation. The rising demand of the petroleum product has forced the entire world to focus on modifying the entire operation (Abila 2014). It has been observed that entire management operation of the Nigerian refining sector has undergone through various challenges and issues for a long time. As a result of long suffering from these intense challenges, the refineries in Nigeria has not been able to meet the regional demands of the state. The state has been unable to eradicate these problems due to lack of understanding on this issues (Amoo and Fagbenle 2014). It has presented a great threat to the development policy of entire Nigeria.

Chapter 2: Literature Review

Why it is an issue?

The continuous drive of globalization as well as competition has forced the Nigerian state to focus on rapid development of every industry (Longhurst et al. 2016). As the refineries sector provides a greater opportunity for the nation to attain an enhanced industrialization throughout the country. In this context, the severe issues in the refining sector have posed a serious obstacle for enhancing the refining sector. It has been observed that the development of the refining sector cannot be obtained without complete eradication of these particular challenges (Alaba and Agbalajobi 2014). In order to eradicate these challenges, an evaluated study on the issues of management operation of refining sector of Nigeria.

Why it is an issue now?

As Nigeria is a developing state, the country is highly focused on fostering industrialization growth in overall nation. In this context, the refining sector has proven to be most crucial factor for the overall growth and development of nation (Abu 2016). It provides significant opportunity to enhance various spheres of country. The growing globalization and competitive environment forced Nigeria to adopt an immediate approach to eradicate the challenges and issues plaguing the refining sector.

What the research could shed light on?

The current study would be highly focused on providing proper insight on the issues, which cause greater hindrance in the management operation in the refining sector. The research would be able to depict the actual working process of the refining sector. Moreover, various factors that influence the management operations in refining sector would be highlighted in the current research. This particular study would be able to provide complete understanding how to eradicate the issues from the refining sector in Nigeria. In addition to that, the study would be able to assist future researchers to carry out further research on this topic.

The aim of this particular research object has been to identify and evaluate the challenges regarding management of the oil and gas refining operation in Nigeria. The project has been also focused on evaluating the trends, patterns as well as potential threat in the oil and gas refining sectors.

The research objectives, which would be most effective for guiding and maintaining thecritical focus of entire study towards successful research accomplishment, are mentioned below:

To explore the management operations in oil and gas refining sectors in Nigeria
To identify the challenges associated to the management operation in refining process in Nigeria
To understand the trends, patterns as well as potential threats of oil and gas refining sector in Nigeria
To recommend effective strategies for improving management operation of refining process in Nigeria

The research questions play a significant role in creating a proper focus for every research activity within the study. The activities always undertake necessary decision to answer the research questions in an efficient way. In the current context the research questions are

What are the important management operations in oil and gas refining sectors in Nigeria?
What are the challenges associated to the management operation in refining process in Nigeria?
What are the trends, patterns as well as potential threats of oil and gas refining sector in Nigeria?
What are the effective strategies for improving management operation of refining process in Nigeria?

Figure 1: Structure of the Research

In this literature review section, various literatures related with operation management of the oil refinery industry of Nigeria had been discussed. In the nest section an overview of the refinery industry had been provided. After that an overview of Nigeria oil refinery industry had been provided along with different refinery companies of Nigeria ad their issues. In the next stage, the intergraded operations management Solution required for Refining industry had been provided. In addition, the factors affecting management operation in Nigerian refining industry and initiatives taken by Nigerian refining industry to increase efficiency had been discussed in this chapter along with the opportunities to improve Nigerian refining industry had been discussed in this chapter.

Joly (2012) had developed a research work to find out the production planning and scheduling operation of the refinery industry. The major objectives of this paper are to clarify the central role of the refining planning and scheduling activities in the refining business. All the major past and present results are incorporated along with long term strategies to handle the present and future challenges faced by the industry. In this study, it had been mentioned that planning and scheduling had significant impact on the refinery profitgablity, logistic reliability, corporate levels and softy procedure. It had been mentioned in this study that, in Brazil, these activities play specific role since the downstream model of the country is shifting towards demand driven model rather than the supply driven model. In addition, all the new specialized and non-linear issues are continuously being added to the large scale problems.

McCreery (2013) had developed as developed a research work to fin out the importance of operational excellence. It has provided the imperative for oil and gas companies. It had been mentioned in this study that increase of complexity, risks and costs have combine the importance of efficiency of operation more than ever. It had been mentioned that change is operation management is challenging, but complacency is a feasible option. It had been found that, oil and gas industry is always in the headline of news for wrong reasons. It includes oil spillage in Brazil, sabotage in Nigeria and plant explosion in Thailand. However, this news only tells a small fraction of the reality. Every day ten thousands of wells, hungered miles of pipelines and millions of equipments are used to send energy safely to homes, factories and communities. In this study, it had been mentioned that, operational excellence can allow the leaders of oil and gas industries to say with confident and prove that they operating their business reliably, safely, cost effectively and sustainably. However, there are sic major areas, in which gas and oil leaders needs to focus on. They are such as top quartile performance, best in class standards and systems, development of high performance culture, world class health and safety in the workplace, unique core capabilities and improving reputation. It had been mentioned that operational excellence had been achieved by many companies using various transformational programs. This transformational program had three major stages. These stages are such as operational elements and scope, change management and delivery of result and continuous performance enhancement procedure.

Karev et al. (2015) had developed a research work to find out the driving operational performance in oil and gas industry. Form this research work, it had been found that, the oil and gas industry is facing major crisis that has threaten most stable companies all over the world. It had been mentioned in this study that the oil and gas industry had faced many ups and downs. However, most of the organizations remain steady in these conditions. In the ear of prosperity, oil and gas companies spend large amount of money for new assets. They hire many workers to enhance growth, often at the expense of current assets performance. On the other hand during economic down turn, companies make drastic cuts to survive and reducing head count to minimize the cost again often at the cost of performance of long term assets. This “expand and contact model” has created grater instability in the oil refinery industry. However, this stability can be achieved through operational excellence programs.

Feblowitz (2015) had developed a research work named “Downstream Oil and Gas: Achieving Excellence by integrating operation.” In this study, the practice approaches of enhancing operations in today’s downstream oil and gas industry, gas processing, refining and petrochemical industry. In this study, it had been mentioned that the focus of the refinery industry should be on organizing workforce, technology and process so that improvement can be achieved in the business operation. It will help a refinery company to take advantage of the new management techniques and technologies. In this research work, guidance has been provided on what stages oil and gas companies can take to make sure that they can meet their business objectives for growth, profitability and product quality, while mitigating risks related with health, safety and environment. A situational overview of the oil and gas industry had been provided in this study. From that it had been found that, low process of natural and crude gas, petrochemical and refining industry is experiencing a growth after years of poor performance. However, this condition will not be persisting very long. Due to stringent regulations related with emission and safety, the operating cost of oil and gas industry will increase. In addition, increment of competition will increase pressure on wholesale and refined product prices. Staying at the middle of the value chain of oil and gas industry (between consumers and producers), downstream leadership has to be prepared to respond quickly with the dynamic market. However, with the easy availability if information now is the best time for refining companies to synchronize their organizational response by integration of operation (Mamman, 2014).

(Mamman, 2014) stated that oil refinery is the industrial process plant where crude oil is processed and refined into useful products such as gasoline, diesel, petroleum, heating oil, liquefied petroleum gas and kerosene. It is considered as the significant part of the downstream side of the petroleum industry. Raw or unprocessed crude oil is mainly used in the industrial application. There is figure given below to describe the business operation of refinery industry (Abila, 2014).

Figure 2: Operation process of oil refinery industry

The common process units used in a refinery industry are such as:

1) Desalter unit

2) Atmospheric distillation unit

3) Vacuum distillation unit

4) Naphtha hydrotreater unit

5) Coking units

6) Utility units (cooling towers, boiler plants)

There is flow diagram given below to describe the operation process of a typical refinery.

Figure 3: Flow diagram of oil refinery industry

There are some major issues need to be considered while selecting location for refinery industry. They are such as:

1) Abu (2016) stated that the location of a refinery company has to be far from residential area

2) Appropriate infrastructures needs to be amiable in order to supply raw materials and shipment of products to the market

3) Alaba and Agbalajobi (2014) mentioned that, all oil refineries require large amount of steam and cooling water. For this reason, every oil refinery needs abundant oil sources. Hence it can be said that a refinery company can work at its highest efficiency, if it is located near sea sore or river side.

4) Required energy source has to be available near the refinery plant for sustainable operation

5) Ambituuni, et al. (2014) added by saying that, facilities must be available for waste disposal.

It had been found that, there are five major refineries can be found in Nigeria. Among them four plants are owned by government of Nigeria through Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). The fifth one is owned and operated by the Niger Delta Petroleum Resources (NDPR) (Amoo & Fagbenle, 2014). Two of the refining plants WRPC and KRPC have their petrochemical complexes to make appropriate utilization of their refinery intermediates to produce petrochemical precursors.

Port Harcourt Refinery

It is the subsidiary of Nigerian Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), operated by Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC) Limited. It has two refineries under it. The older one has the capacity of 60, 000 barrels and the new one has the capacity of 150, 000 barrels. The total capacity of this refinery is

Warri Refinery

(Giwa-Osagie & Ehigiato, 2015) stated that this refinery industry was developed in the year of 1978. It is located at Ekpan, Warrot, Delta State. At that time, It had the capacity of refining 100, 000 barrels per stream day. However, in the year of 1987, it was increased to 125, 0000 barrels. The refinery plant is controlled by the Warri Refining & Petrochemicals Company (WRPC) Limited, which is a subsidiary of NNPC. This plant has the capability to produce Dual Purpose Kerosene (DPK), Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and Automotive Gas Oil (AGO).

Kaduna Refinery

This refinery plant has the refining capacity of 110, 000 barrels per day. The plant is run by Kaduna Refining and Petrochemicals (KRPC) Limited, which is also a subsidiary of NNPC (Longhurst et al. 2016). The plant has two major distillation units that use Escravos and Ughelli crude oils for fuel production. The major products developed in this refinery plant are Aviation Turbine Kerosene (ATK), Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) and Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

Niger Delta Petroleum Resources

Niger Delta Petroleum Resources is a topping plant located at Ogbelle, RiverState. It has the capacity to fine 1,000 barrels of crude oil per day. Popoola et al. (2015) stated that this plant mainly produce diesel for internal consumption and the excess is sold in the locality of RiverState. The refiner plant receives the crude oil from the Niger Delta Exploration and Production (NDEP) Company.

Indorama Eleme Petrochemicals Company Limited

Abu (2016) stated that, this refinery plant is formerly known as Eleme petrochemicals Company Limited (EPCL). In the year of 2006, this plant is acquired from NNPC, during privatization program organized by Indorama as the core investor. This refinery plant is located near Riverstate. The plant has the capability to produce 270, 000 TPA (tonnes per annum) Polyethylene and 22000 TPA Butene-1 and 80, 000 TPA Polypropylene.

According to most of the shareholders of Nigeria’s oil and gas industry, the refining system of the country is casually in very bad shape and lots need to be done to address the decay. Agbiboa and Maiangwa (2012) stated that 97% of all the refineries all over the world are develop in coast. It can increase the efficiency of the crude oil supply and product distribution. Even the remaining 3% are also located near rivers. However, Nigeria is an exception in this case. In Nigeria, the refining companies have pipelines of more than 400 kilometers just to collect crude oil. In rest of the world, pipe line is only used to distribute products, not to collect crude oils to specific location for oil refining. I has reduced the efficiency of Nigerian oil refinery plants. In order to solve this issue, the government of Nigeria has to develop a specific roadmap for improvement. Otherwise, the refinery industry will struggle to fully deregulate the downstream market.

In order to develop a collaborative and agile operation management platform, a refining company needs to focus on three major design principles. These principles can be considered as the core of the system architecture challenge. All these three principles are mentioned below:

Be business process driven:

According to Aghedo and Osumah (2015) business process of a refining company has significant influence on the selection of software application and architecture decision. Adoption of any other process will not be able to meet the requirements of users and business process. Hence, it is significant for business excellence and agility to define and standardize management and refinery operation.

Development of multi-vendor environment:

In refinery industry, a platform strategy has to be used that is open and interoperable across various applications (Ajayi and Ovharhe, 2016). It has been found that tools such as process automation system and transactional system can provide one vendor. This one vendor provides all functionality. On the other hand, Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) can be used to serve multiple vendors due to complex, diverse and analytical nature of the technologies involved.

Leverage of open frameworks and standards:

Integrations platform used in refinery industry has to be scalable and expandable. It has to be based on Service oriented Architectures (SOA) that can free users from the legacy system and proprietary formats.

Depending on the above mentioned three principles, an integrated operation management solution had been developed that can meet the specific needs of customers:

Development and enhancement of business process design

The review phase of refinery business process start with “as-is” phase. It can help to understand the barriers of the operational process used in refinery industry (Akinwale and Akinbami, 2016). The next stage is named as “To-Be” stage. In this stage, it is required to develop and examine many templates of refining process. Each of these processes has to utilize best practices around tasks, activities, requirements and actors.

Development of broad application portfolio

After assessing different portfolio of business process operation, it is required to develop a broad application portfolio. This portfolio must cover operation management solution footprint. There are various good examples of operation management solution can be found. They are such as ROMSS (refinery off-sites management and BOSS & OMM) and IntelaTrac (mobile).

Integration of the refer ace architecture

It is required to facilitate integration into various refining industry. Amadi and Abdullah (2012) stated that an oil refining company has to develop reference architecture based on industry standards such as ISA-95. If reflects the industry domain knowledge of management team, expertise in refining process and experienced gained by employees by using MES applications across different stages of refinery industry. It also provides customers the opportunity to have complete control over a company’s real-time integration of the corporate business applications, automation layer and MOMS components. As a result is can help to develop a stainable solution with low risk to operation and shortest possible time to value.

Figure 4: Intergraded Operations Management solution for refinery industry

There are some crucial factors that have significant impact on the management operation of Nigerian refinery industry. They are such as optimization, operation research, in-house technology development and human factor. All these factors have been discussed below:]

Impact of optimization in refining business

According to Anifowose et al. (2016), optimization process is crucial for high performance refineries. The aim of the refinery optimization is to increase business operation to the maximum limit. Due to the world wide economic breakdown and optimization of the existing refinery plants, most of the companies had cancelled or postponed their plan of refinery capacity expansion. The optimization of the existing refinery plants had lost its priority in favor of designing a new plan. In other words, optimization can be referred as flexibility. Usually an oil refinery company performs types of periodic optimization study. They are such as:

1) Strategic planning for future expansion

2) Annual plan for budgeting, programmed shutdown planning and contract for crude oil

3) Plan for crude selection and conduction of refinery operation in accordance to the demand

4) Short term planning to develop strategies related with product delivery, availability of crude oil, logistic and operational constraints and economic issues.

5) Plan to enhance profitability and modification at plant level

Impact of operation research in optimization of refinery

Anthony and Pratt (2015) stated that, in order to become successful, refinery organizations have to closely monitor their performance, address their major weaknesses and modify operations accordingly (especially in the time of crisis). Although these principles are easy to understand, archiving these principles are very tough. In Oil Refinery industry, refinery planning and scheduling is considered as the most difficult class of mathematical optimization. In order to develop production planning analysis, most of the oil refinery organization use mixed integer linear programming (MILP) approach.

Role of in-house technology development as the competitive differential

Refinery planning plays a significant role in the supply chain of refinery as it converts raw materials into finished products. (Asekunowo & Olaiya, 2012) stated that image of refinery industry depends largely on the effectiveness of scheduling, product planning committed to the needs of customers. In Refinery industry, system integration is considered as the major motivating factor to establish in-house decision making system. Abila (2014) mentioned that, development of in-house technology can help a refinery company to take full advantage to translate its business into a specialize one and use “know-how” matrix as effective decision making tool.

Figure 5: Decision making framework (hierarchical) used in oil refinery industry

Impact of human factor on refining industry

The production scheduling and planning teams of most of refinery companies have high profile in their organizations. Popoola et al, (2015) stated that, planners of refinery industry are often engaged in a wide range of study rather than preparing monthly plan. In addition schedulers and process engineers also palsy significant role in the day-to-day operation of refinery industry as well. (Longhurst et al. (2016) have analyzed some major characteristics of team that can make the business operation of refinery industry successful. They are such as:

1) Motivated operating staffs having ample job experience in refinery industry

2) Engineers with open minds to find new solutions and examining new test tools

3) Polyvalent skills for prompt substitution and multidisciplinary assistance.

Modification

In April 2016, a tender was launched to invite bids from investors to become financial and technical joint venture partners for the modernization of the four refineries. This program was initiated to make each of these plants 100% active and operational. Based on a method similar to the Nigeria’s existing LNG model, this program calls for remodeling the refineries to operate as incorporated JVs where NNPC will have 51% interest.

Relocation

NNPC is also facilitating a coexisting plan to leverage capacity of its subsidiaries’ operations by relocating brownfiield refining from abroad. In February 2016, a tender was passed where investors were asked to relocate program specified that brownfield refineries will be relocated to NNPC and will be configured to meet the AFRI 5 quality standards for low-sulfur fuels.

However till now, manufacture of crude oil feedstock tanks and refined-products tanks are only 55% complete, with production also under way on Ventech’s ISBL unit, which is to be the modular refinery’s innermost dispensation equipment, as mentioned by Dr. Eruani Azibapu Godbless, president of Azikel. Due for startup in 2018, Azikel’s refinery will fabricate high-quality variants of LPG, gasoline, kerosene, aviation fuel, diesel, and heavy fuel oil.

Construction also remains under way on Nigerian conglomerate Dangote Industries Ltd. subsidiary Dangote Oil Refining Co.’s grassroots integrated refinery and petrochemical plant in southwestern Nigeria’s Lekki Free Trade Zone, near Lagos

New capacity plans

In the year of 2015, DPC issues 22 new licenses for constructing privately funded grassroots refineries. It I actually a strategy facilitated by the federal government to make sure ample fuel supplies. A mix of modular and conventional construction, the proposed new refineries would add nearly 1.3 million b/sd of fresh processing capacity to NNPC’s expansion plan.

Other initiatives

Among other initiatives taken, independent NDPR which is a subsidiary of Niger delta Exploration and Production PLC is growing its Ogbele Field refinery. The project that will involve installation of additional crude distillation units, a naptha hydrotrater, a naptha splitter and a catalytic reforming unit for the production of gasoline is scheduled to be commissioned in early 2018.

On the other hand, the domestic government of Nigeria’s Abia State has set aside 400 hectares at Owazza in Ukwa for Hyundai Group of South Korea plan to develop a 250,000 b/sd refinery. This information was shared by the state government on June 16, 2016.

Besides, Abia State Government previously entered an agreement with Hermes Juno Ltd. for establishment of a 50,000 b/sd modular refinery project at Owazza.

Babajide et al. (2014) stated that, due to some constructional deficiencies, most of the oil marketers, majors and marginal field operators prefer to avoid Nigerian refining industry. However, in reality they are missing a huge amount of money in the downstream sector, as refinery industry of Nigeria has the spark to gain the interest of global investors. The present thinking of oil refinery industry is that those refinery companies should be sold since they are oeprtaing below105 capability. Babatunde (2012) mentioned that the country Nigeria is getting ready to issue a bidding license for new oil blocks. It can help these companies to reposition themselves in the market. The new “cash call” deal can provide oil companies the confidence that they can easily negotiate good deals with Nigerian government.

The Nigerian government has developed service contract that will allow the government to operate the refineries for the next 10 years. The Nigerian government has developed a sharing formula to analyze the cost and benefits of the projects. It can really increase the opportunity to enhance Nigerian refinery business industry.

Chircop et al. (2016) stated that the price of crude oil struggle to leave the floor, derivatives from the crude oil is becoming more attractive option for investments. From the oil market report 2016, it had been found that refined product stocks movements shows a 4Q16 build in the OECD, with the overhang in non-OECD implied refined product inventories persisting. de Montclos (2014) argued that, there are brighter prospects in other sectors can also be found. It is estimated that to global petrochemical market will grow from $514 billion in the year of 2014 to $750 billion by 2022. This inclining demand of petrochemical market including construction and transportation sector will the drive the growth of Nigerian oil refinery market as well.

According to the operation report developed by NNPC, in Nigeria 1.11 billion liters of Kerosene and 11.84 billion liters of petrol were between 2015 and 2016. The total amount of crude oil refined by the three major oil refinery of Nigeria in 2016 was 230, 738 MT (1, 698, 567 bbls). Ambituuni et al. (2014) stated that there is huge opportunity of improvement can be found in the downstream market of Nigeria. If the Nigerian government deregulates the refinery market, then these companies will be able to make huge amount of profit.

Nigeria is already gaining reward from the year of 2016, for deeper investment in downstream sector. The leading company of oil refinery sector belongs to Nigeria now as per earning per share. Total closed third quarter operations with earnings per share of N34.26, more than four times the N8.16 it closed in the same period in the preceding year. The company also recorded sales growth of 38% year-on-year at the end of the first quarter from N159.2 billion to N220.2billion (De Vita, et al., 2016). The result indicates that there are still opportunities in Nigeria’s downstream sector for the investors despite of some major challenges occurred due to the proce cap enforcement by Nigerian government.

Figure 6: Conceptual Framework

From the entire discussion it can be stated that currently, all the refineries in Nigeria are not performing as per the requirement. However, a lot of initiatives are taken to improve the current situation and it is expected that till 2018, the condition will change drastically.

Every research project is immensely depended on the proper selection of research methodology as the appropriate selection of the research methodology helps the research to attain proper guidance as well as direction throughout the entire study. The research methodology leads towards most effective and efficient research findings. It has been observed that without the proper selection of methodology the research activities tend to go haywire. Therefore, it is necessary for every research project to select most suitable methods for the respective research topic. There are various research techniques, which are most influential to provide a crucial outcome of the study. The current section has focused on discussing the most important research methods, which would be necessary for evaluating the management operational challenges in Nigeria refinery sector. In addition to that, this particular section has also discussed the ethical consideration as well as timeline of the entire study.

The research proposal is highly significant technique of the research project as it aims to develop necessary knowledge for the research study. There have been various research proposals utilized to develop research knowledge from the beginning of academic study. The most important research philosophies are pragmatism, realism, interpretivism as well as positivism. The pragmatism philosophy states the any singular process or tool cannot attain proper knowledge of research outcome. It believes that every scenario must be analyzed with more than one tool for ensuring its reliability. On the other hand, realism philosophy states that individual contradictory interpretations are most effective tools for acquiring complete knowledge of the research study. According to this ideology, every scenario has multiple face of reality and cannot be acquired with the logical deduction. At the same time, intrepretivism believes that the interpretation acquired by the research participants in the context of research issue is the best process of knowledge development. In contrary, positivism research philosophy immensely depends on the scientific process and logical conclusion for the knowledge development.

The current research project has selected positivism research philosophy for developing research knowledge. As the current research project is aimed to evaluate management operational challenges in Nigerian refinery sector, the logical deduction would have most appropriate technique for the current study. Therefore, the current project has selected positivism research philosophy. The use of scientific tools as well as eradication of human influences are the also important reason for selecting the positivism research philosophy as they are crucial for enhancing the data quality.

The research approach is popularly known as the selective ways the research project wants to conduct their research work. The selection of the proper research approach typically depends upon the motive of the research processes. The academic study has been focused two basic research approaches, which are highly popular in the academic research sector. These research approaches are deductive research approach as well as inductive research approach. The deductive research approach exclusively focuses on the testing of hypothesis in order to derive the research outcomes (Freshwater 2012). The deductive research approach test the research assumptions on the basis of empirical research findings. These empirical data highly assists to find out the relevance of research assumptions so that the accurate assumptions can be identified as the research findings. On the other hand, the inductive approach highly concentrates on the development of new theories regarding the research topic. The inductive approach explores the empirical data with the aim of finding out the exact styles, patterns and trends in the acquired data range.

Current research project has been aimed to find out the influential factors, challenges and opportunities of the oil and gas refineries management. Therefore, it has been evident that in order to find out the level of influence on oil and gas refineries of the factors only can be derived by the testing research assumptions (Harrison and Reilly 2011). Hence, deductive approach would be most necessary technique for the current research work. In this context, the inductive approach had no use, as the research project was not focused to develop new theories regarding oil and gas refineries. Therefore, this particular research study has selected deductive approach for carrying out the research activities.

Research design has been another crucial technique that assisted the study to direct its’ each and individual activities towards effective and relevant research outcomes. There are three different research designs, which are highly popular in the academic research sector. These research designs are exploratory research design, explanatory research design and descriptive research design. The exploratory research design is focused on exploring the incomplete research aims in order to find out the complete and realistic research findings. At the same time the explanatory research design concentrates on explaining the research confusing research aims, so that the research activities can derive most clear and accurate research outcomes (Hooper 2012). On the other hand, the descriptive research design exclusively emphasizes on the evaluating the clear research aims in a detailed manner.

The current research topic has been aimed to investigate the factors, challenges and opportunities of the oil and gas refineries management. At the same time, two of the major objective of the entire study has been evaluating the trends, challenges and practices in oil and gas refineries as well as details of a management framework of Nigerian oil and gas refineries. Therefore, it has been evident that the both of the explorative and descriptive research designs would be most valuable for conducting the research project (Cameron 2012). It have been proven to be most effective as it has helped to investigate as well as detail various research elements. Therefore, the current research project has selected a mixed design of both explorative and descriptive research designs.

The entire prolific outcomes of the study have been depended on the selection of the proper technique of the data collection. The proper selection of the data collection techniques is highly necessary for maintaining the relevance and quality of the research findings. The research data are mostly differentiated in two basic forms, which are primary data and secondary data. The primary data refers to the fresh information acquired from various sources, which can reflect the contemporary condition of the world (Morgan 2012). The primary data can be acquired from the various surveys, interview as well as focus groups. On the other hand, the secondary data the information acquired from the previously published literatures such as journal articles, books, newspapers, and internet as well as government reports. The secondary data can be proven to be most essential source of providing expert opinion on the research issue. Moreover, idea of the gradual trend and pattern based on the passing time can only be derived from the secondary data.

In this context, the research project has been focused to identify the factors, challenges and opportunities in the oil and gas refineries in Nigeria. The secondary data has been proven to provide a detailed understanding on the research topic. In addition to that, it has been also able to indicate the gradual change in various factors with the passing of time (Onwuegbuzie and Leech 2012). Therefore, it has been evident that the selection of the secondary data for the current research project has been properly justified.

The data analysis technique is one of the most influential techniques, which are highly effective for achieving most relevant, realistic as well as accurate research findings at the time of analyzing the collected data. There are various data analysis techniques, which have been used in the academic research sector. The proper selection of data analysis technique is immensely essential for maintaining the quality of research findings (Toloie-Eshlaghy et al. 2012). As this particular research project has been focused on collecting secondary data, thematic analysis has been proven to be most effective data analysis technique. The thematic data analysis immensely focuses on evaluating the collected data on the basis of various themes in the research topic. It has provided a clearer picture on the condition of the current research work.

The ethical consideration is another major pillar of the research projects that assists the research project to carry out its various research activities in a respectful and smooth way (Truscott et al. 2012). In the current context, the research project has been focused on maintaining a friendly, albeit professional environment from the beginning of the research project. The research participants have been involved in the research project with their personal consent. No amount of force has been used at the time of their involvement with the research project. The research project has exclusively focused on maintaining a strict policy in the context of data security. Therefore, the sensible research information has not been shared with the third party. Moreover, the research project has not gathered any kind of information from the commercial website. Above all, the research project has complied with every individual laws and regulations, which are relevant with the research project.

Main activities/ stages	Month February	Month March	Month April	Month May	Month June	Month July
Topic Selection	ü
Data collection from secondary sources	ü	ü
Framing layout of the research		ü
Literature review		ü	ü	ü
Formation of the research Plan			ü	ü
Selection of the Appropriate Research Techniques				ü	ü
Primary data collection					ü	ü
Analysis & Interpretation of Data Collection					ü	ü
Conclusion of the Study						ü
Formation of Rough Draft						ü
Submission of Final Work						ü

Table 1: Gant chart

The above-described research methodology has been most effective part of the entire research project. The proper selection of the methods and techniques assisted the research project to acquire most desired success. The research project has selected positivism as the research philosophy; deductive as the research approach; exploratory and descriptive as the research design. At the same time, the secondary data has been selected for the current research project and it has been analyzed with the help of thematic analysis technique. The ethical consideration as well as timeline has been most helpful to conduct a smooth operation of the research project. Therefore, it can be easily assumed that the methodology chapter has successfully helped to achieve relevant and realistic research outcomes.

The data analysis chapter has been most important part of the entire research project. This particular research project is mostly focused on interpreting as well as evaluating the collected data. The data have been collected from the secondary source in order to provide a clear understanding on the trends, patterns as well as styles in the research topic. In addition to that, the current research paper has adopted thematic analysis in order to properly analyze the actual themes and elements of the given condition. The data analysis has been able to provide remarkable research findings that are most realistic and effective.

Structure of the Nigerian Refinery Sector

It had been found that, there are five major refineries can be found in Nigeria. Among them four plants are owned by government of Nigeria through Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). The fifth one is owned and operated by the Niger Delta Petroleum Resources (NDPR) (Dick 2016). Two of the refining plants WRPC and KRPC have their petrochemical complexes to make appropriate utilization of their refinery intermediates to produce petrochemical precursors.

Port Harcourt Refinery: It is the subsidiary of Nigerian Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), operated by Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC) Limited. It has two refineries under it. The older one has the capacity of 60, 000 barrels and the new one has the capacity of 150, 000 barrels. The total capacity of this refinery is

Warri Refinery: This particular refinery industry was developed in the year of 1978. It is located at Ekpan, Warrot, Delta State. At that time, It had the capacity of refining 100, 000 barrels per stream day. However, in the year of 1987, it was increased to 125, 0000 barrels. The refinery plant is controlled by the Warri Refining & Petrochemicals Company (WRPC) Limited, which is a subsidiary of NNPC. This plant has the capability to produce Dual Purpose Kerosene (DPK), Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and Automotive Gas Oil (AGO).

Kaduna Refinery: This refinery plant has the refining capacity of 110, 000 barrels per day. The plant is run by Kaduna Refining and Petrochemicals (KRPC) Limited, which is also a subsidiary of NNPC (Dode 2012) The plant has two major distillation units that use Escravos and Ughelli crude oils for fuel production. The major products developed in this refinery plant are Aviation Turbine Kerosene (ATK), Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) and Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

Niger Delta Petroleum Resources: Niger Delta Petroleum Resources is a topping plant located at Ogbelle, RiverState. It has the capacity to fine 1,000 barrels of crude oil per day. This plant mainly produce diesel for internal consumption and the excess is sold in the locality of RiverState. The refiner plant receives the crude oil from the Niger Delta Exploration and Production (NDEP) Company.

Indorama Eleme Petrochemicals Company Limited: This particualr refinery plant is formerly known as Eleme petrochemicals Company Limited (EPCL). In the year of 2006, this plant is acquired from NNPC, during privatization program organized by Indorama as the core investor. This refinery plant is located near Riverstate. The plant has the capability to produce 270, 000 TPA (tonnes per annum) Polyethylene and 22000 TPA Butene-1 and 80, 000 TPA Polypropylene.

According to most of the shareholders of Nigeria’s oil and gas industry, the refining system of the country is casually in very bad shape and lots need to be done to address the decay. (Duru and Ogbonnaya 2012). stated that 97% of all the refineries all over the world are develop in coast. It can increase the efficiency of the crude oil supply and product distribution. Even the remaining 3% are also located near rivers. However, Nigeria is an exception in this case. In Nigeria, the refining companies have pipelines of more than 400 kilometers just to collect crude oil. In rest of the world, pipe line is only used to distribute products, not to collect crude oils to specific location for oil refining. Abila (2014) stated that it has reduced the efficiency of Nigerian oil refinery plants. In order to solve this issue, the government of Nigeria has to develop a specific roadmap for improvement. Otherwise, the refinery industry will struggle to fully deregulate the downstream market.

Operations Management Practices in Refining industry

Business process driven: Business process of a refining company has significant influence on the selection of software application and architecture decision. Adoption of any other process will not be able to meet the requirements of users and business process. Hence, it is significant for business excellence and agility to define and standardize management and refinery operation.

Development of multi-vendor environment: In refinery industry, a platform strategy has to be used that is open and interoperable across various applications Abu (2016). It has been found that tools such as process automation system and transactional system can provide one vendor. This one vendor provides all functionality. On the other hand, Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) can be used to serve multiple vendors due to complex, diverse and analytical nature of the technologies involved.

Leverage of open frameworks and standards: Integrations platform used in refinery industry has to be scalable and expandable. It has to be based on Service oriented Architectures (SOA) that can free users from the legacy system and proprietary formats.

Operations Management techniques in Refining industry

Depending on the above mentioned three principles, an integrated operation management solution had been developed that can meet the specific needs of customers:

Development and enhancement of business process design: The review phase of refinery business process start with “as-is” phase. It can help to understand the barriers of the operational process used in refinery industry (Agbiboa and Maiangwa, 2012). The next stage is named as “To-Be” stage. In this stage, it is required to develop and examine many templates of refining process. Each of these processes has to utilize best practices around tasks, activities, requirements and actors.

Development of broad application portfolio: After assessing different portfolio of business process operation, it is required to develop a broad application portfolio. This portfolio must cover operation management solution footprint Akinwale and Akinbami (2016). There are various good examples of operation management solution can be found. They are such as ROMSS (refinery off-sites management and BOSS & OMM) and IntelaTrac (mobile).

Integration of the referred architecture: It is required to facilitate integration into various refining industry. Amadi and Abdullah (2012) stated that an oil refining company has to develop reference architecture based on industry standards such as ISA-95. If reflects the industry domain knowledge of management team, expertise in refining process and experienced gained by employees by using MES applications across different stages of refinery industry. It also provides customers the opportunity to have complete control over a company’s real-time integration of the corporate business applications, automation layer and MOMS components. As a result is can help to develop a stainable solution with low risk to operation and shortest possible time to value.

Operation Management Factors in Nigerian Refinery Sector:

Impact of optimization in refining business: Optimization process is crucial for high performance refineries. The aim of the refinery optimization is to increase business operation to the maximum limit. In the point of view of Giwa-Osagie Asekunowo and Olaiya (2012) Ehigiato (2015), due to the worldwide economic breakdown and optimization of the existing refinery plants, most of the companies had cancelled or postponed their plan of refinery capacity expansion. The optimization of the existing refinery plants had lost its priority in favor of designing a new plan. In other words, optimization can be referred as flexibility. Aghedo and Osumah (2015) stated that, generally an oil refinery company performs types of periodic optimization study.

Impact of operation research in optimization of refinery: In order to become successful, refinery organizations have to closely monitor their performance, address their major weaknesses and modify operations accordingly (especially in the time of crisis). Anifowose et al. (2016) argued that, although these principles are easy to understand, archiving these principles are very tough. In Oil Refinery industry, refinery planning and scheduling is considered as the most difficult class of mathematical optimization. Ambituuni et al. (2014) stated that, in order to develop production planning analysis, most of the oil refinery organization use mixed integer linear programming (MILP) approach.

Role of in-house technology development: Refinery planning plays a significant role in the supply chain of refinery as it converts raw materials into finished products. Asekunowo and Olaiya (2012) stated that image of refinery industry depends largely on the effectiveness of scheduling, product planning committed to the needs of customers. In Refinery industry, system integration is considered as the major motivating factor to establish in-house decision making system. Development of in-house technology can help a refinery company to take full advantage to translate its business into a specialize one and use “know-how” matrix as effective decision making tool.

Impact of human factor: The production scheduling and planning teams of most of refinery companies have high profile in their organizations. Babajide, et al., (2014) stated that, planners of refinery industry are often engaged in a wide range of study rather than preparing monthly plan. In addition schedulers and process engineers also palsy significant role in the day-to-day operation of refinery industry as well. Asekunowo andOlaiya (2012) have analyzed some major characteristics of team that can make the business operation of refinery industry successful. They are such as:

Initiatives for Nigerian Refining Industry improvement:

Modification: In April 2016, a tender was launched to invite bids from investors to become financial and technical joint venture partners for the modernization of the four refineries. This program was initiated to make each of these plants 100% active and operational. Based on a method similar to the Nigeria’s existing LNG model, this program calls for remodeling the refineries to operate as incorporated JVs where NNPC will have 51% interest.

Relocation: NNPC is also facilitating a coexisting plan to leverage capacity of its subsidiaries’ operations by relocating brownfiield refining from abroad. In February 2016, a tender was passed where investors were asked to relocate program specified that brownfield refineries will be relocated to NNPC and will be configured to meet the AFRI 5 quality standards for low-sulfur fuels.

New capacity plans: In the year of 2015, DPC issues 22 new licenses for constructing privately funded grassroots refineries. It I actually a strategy facilitated by the federal government to make sure ample fuel supplies. A mix of modular and conventional construction, the proposed new refineries would add nearly 1.3 million b/sd of fresh processing capacity to NNPC’s expansion plan.

Other initiatives: Among other initiatives taken, independent NDPR which is a subsidiary of Niger delta Exploration and Production PLC is growing its Ogbele Field refinery. The project that will involve installation of additional crude distillation units, a naptha hydrotrater, a naptha splitter and a catalytic reforming unit for the production of gasoline is scheduled to be commissioned in early 2018.

Chapter 5: Conclusion and Recommendation:

5.1 Conclusion:

The conclusion chapter has been most integral part of the overall study. The conclusion chapter has been able to concluding the research project in an efficient manner. It has offered an immense platform for conveying the outcomes of the entire research through the research findings. In this context, the conclusion chapter has linked the objective with the entire research project. This particular part has been able to indicate that the research project has been progressed in proper direction and with the aim of achieving the research objectives from the beginning. In addition to that, the research project has been able to suggest most effective way for improving the management policy of oil and gas refineries . The suggestion has been made on the basis of findings of the research data analysis.

To explore the management operations in oil and gas refining sectors in Nigeria

The current objective has been attempted to be linked with the entire research work in a detailed manner. It has been attempted to investigate all of the aspects of the management operations associated to the Nigerian oil and gas sector refineries, across the research project, in a critical manner. In addition to that, further investigation of the impact Nigerian oil refineries has been conducted by analyzing the secondary data that has been collected in the study. The data findings have been quite effective in the context of supporting the knowledge acquired in the literature review. Therefore, it is evident that current research work has been highly successful to link the respective objective throughout the research activities.

To identify the challenges associated to the management operation in refining process in Nigeria

The current objective has been attempted to be linked with the entire research work in a detailed manner. It has been attempted to investigate all of the challenges of the refineries management operations in the Nigerian oil and gas sector, across the research project, in a critical manner. In addition to that, further investigation of the influence of every aspect of refineries in the Nigerian oil and gas sector has been conducted by analyzing the secondary data that has been collected in the study. The data findings has been quite effective in the context of supporting the knowledge acquired in the literature review. Therefore, it is evident that current research work has been highly successful to link the respective objective throughout the research activities.

To understand the trends, patterns as well as potential threats of oil and gas refining sector in Nigeria

The current objective has been attempted to be linked with the entire research work in a detailed manner. It has been attempted to analyze all of the trends, patterns as well as potential threats of the refineries associated to the Nigerian oil and gas sector, across the research project, in a critical manner. In addition to that, further investigation of the factors related to trends, patterns as well as potential threats of the refineries in the Nigerian oil and gas sector have been conducted by analyzing the secondary data that has been collected in the study. The data findings have been quite effective in the context of supporting the knowledge acquired in the literature review. Therefore, it is evident that current research work has been highly successful to link the respective objective throughout the research activities.

To recommend effective strategies for improving management operation of refining process in Nigeria

The current objective has been attempted to be linked with the entire research work in a detailed manner. It has been attempted to investigate all of the aspects of Refineries associated to the Nigerian oil and gas sector, across the research project, in a critical manner. The exact factors, challenges, opportunities of Nigerian Oil and Gas sector refineries in Nigerian Oil and Gas sector have been data pointed out through the data analysis. The data findings has been quite effective in the context of providing crucial way for suggesting effective way of implementing in the refineries of Nigerian oil and gas sector. Therefore, it is evident that current research work has been highly successful to link the respective objective throughout the research activities.

The above data analysis has been quite effective to provide proper evaluation of the collected data, which has been highly crucial for deriving the data findings. The data findings have greatly assisted to provide several crucial suggestions, which will be essential for improving the refineries in Nigerian oil and gas sector. These suggestions are described below:

Transparent, competitive and open downstream awards:

The Nigerian Oil and Gas sector refineries must allow no-bid awards only when the other bids are not satisfactory. In order to develop the bid parameter the work commitments, royalty percentage as well as signature bonus must be considered as crucial factor. The details of the bid and tender must be published online so that the transparency can be maintained.

Strong legislation for downstream and midstream licenses and awarding lifting:

The Nigerian Oil and Gas sector refineries must ensure that the provision of downstream licensing would mimic the upstream. It would require transparent, open and competitive award must be processed. The regulation of qualifying applicants must be detailed so that no confusion can be attained. The awards as well as applications must be published in minimum two different newspapers so that the public can comment.

Clearly defined process for share selling and joint venture operations:

The Nigerian Oil and Gas sector refineries must establish a basic structure in order to ensure potential deals. The Nigerian Oil and Gas sector refineries must establish that the government stake would be hold by which entity in an incorporated NNPC. In addition to that, the Nigerian Oil and Gas sector refineries also needs to include proper guidelines that would be able to decide which exact agencies would set prices and sell the shares. In addition to that, it would also focus on setting the rules for determining the agencies that would proceeds spend sale and receive.

Increased access of Information:

The final version of the Refineries must declare the operational activities of the various institutions in Nigerian oil sector. The Nigerian Oil and Gas sector refineries must void the contract in the context of confidentiality of bonus payments, fees, royalties as well as upstream tax. It would require publishing contracts as well as industry license texts online with the help of Inspectorate. It will need to publish the production sharing contracts as well as approved budget of JVs. It also needs to publish other necessary information.

Clarity on refineries flows:

The Nigerian Oil and Gas sector refineries need to establish the agency that would be responsible for assessing payments of crude sales, dividends, bonuses, fees, royalties as well as taxes. The bill needs to account that would making the way of the federation account as well as house the refineries s. The Nigerian Oil and Gas sector refineries must maintain proper corporate governance.

It has been observed that majority of the research studies are suffered from two major limitations at the time of conducting research project. These research limitations are mainly time and finance. As this particular research project has been a vast array of smaller activities, the research work has experienced a tremendous crunch in allocated time. Due to this particular cause, the study has not been able to collect satisfactory data from a huge numbers of journal articles, books and newspaper articles. Inevitably, this particular incident has affected the quality of data collection. At the same time, the research project has faced a tremendous crisis in their budget. Due to the shortage of funding, the project has not been able use high class software for data quality. This particular incident has created a critical data contamination, which has led to reduced quality of data.

The current research project is one of the greatest efforts in evaluating the Nigerian Oil and Gas sector refineries in Nigerian Oil and Gas sector. The paper would be able to provide a clear understanding on the trends and practices of Nigerian Oil and Gas sector refineries. It covered various aspects, implications, and recommendations in concern with the Nigerian Oil and Gas sector refineries, which will be most oil and gas industry of any developing country. The oil and gas industry professionals would be able to implement most effective recommendation for improving Nigerian Oil and Gas sector refineries. The future researchers will also be greatly assisted by the current research project in case of further studies in this topic.

I have been always attracted towards oil and gas industry of the developing countries and therefore wanted to acquire proper understanding through evaluated study on this topic. This particular research project has provided a great opportunity to attain most reliable and effective perception on this topic. In order to conduct this particular evaluative study, the assistance from the professor has been significantly helpful, as their guidance has constructed the pillar of my knowledge. I have understood how to select proper research topic through studying of previous researches and identification of the gaps. I have been also able to provide proper rationale for establishing the significance for this particular project. I understood the importance of research aim, objective, hypothesis and question in guiding the research project towards proper direction.

I was plagued by the fear that I would not be able to conduct the research project efficiently, as I had very limited knowledge on the topic. However, the effective study of literature helped me a great deal to overcome my fear. I was able to attain significant knowledge and skills, which assisted me to conduct the research project with significant ease. I also learnt that methodologies of any research project plays critical role in the success of any project. Therefore, I delved into the study of methodology and was able to select most suitable methodologies for this particular project. The study of the methodology provided me a greater understanding on the working of research project. It helped me to understand working of each methodology and their application in the academic sphere.

After selecting the methodology part, I dedicated myself to conduct an effective data collection so that data contamination would not affect the research outcome. I came to know that quality of the data collection greatly influence the effectiveness of the finding. At the time of conducting the interview, I was quite nervous, as I had no prior experience to conduct any data collection from secondary sources. However, as the data collection process progressed I have been able to gain more confidence and complete the process appropriately. It has greatly enhanced my ability to conduct any kind of secondary data collection with greater precision.

After completing the activities of data collection, I applied all my acquired knowledge and skill to conduct the data analysis in an effective manner. I knew that data collection is the prime part of any research project as it determines the efficacy of the entire research project. The concept of thematic analysis has been a significant help to conduct the qualitative analysis. I have been able to conclude the secondary data with the help of themes identification and evaluation technique in a singlehanded fashion. In addition, the analysis has given me insight how the data can gracefully reflect the conclusion on the research issue. I have been able to provide crucial recommendation for improving the performance refinery sector in Nigeria on the basis of findings acquired of data analysis. This particular research project has been greatest milestone in my academic career. It has been able to boost my confidence and ability in such extent that I would be able to contribute myself in any kind of further research project.

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