Nigeria's foremost Online Energy News Platform

FUPRE Set to Unveil First Indigenous Refinery

By Teddy Nwanunobi

The Vice-Chancellor of the Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Effurun (FUPRE), Delta State, Prof. Akpofure Rim-Rukeh, has said that the institution will, in no distant time, unveil a 20,000 capacity indigenous refinery, which it built with locally sourced materials.

Rim-Rukeh, according to a report, disclosed that inadequate funding had hindered the project which was conceived in 2018.

The Vice Chancellor said that the boiler units had been completed, while work was ongoing on the atmospheric and vacuum distillation units.

“The refinery is 100 per cent indigenous, which means that the design and everything that goes into it is 100 per cent fabricated in the University. FUPRE will not purchase any parts from anywhere.

“Its design and the boiler unit have been completed. The next stage is the construction of the atmospheric distillation and vacuum distillation units,” he said.

Rim-Rukeh, who presented his performance scorecard to journalists, said the university had made great strides in its academic programmes, ICT and infrastructure development, provision of resource materials, healthcare and improved relationship with host communities, among others.

“As an innovative and research-intensive university, we are aggressively pursuing socially impactful research activities with utility value and practical application. To this end, the university had developed a policy on research and direction.

“It is in acknowledging the university’s prowess in research and innovation that the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), pursuant to President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive to focus on the development of centre of excellence in the nation’s university system that we are about to establish centre for climate change, water and renewable energy research centres,” he stated.

Rim-Rukeh also disclosed that the University recently won an N40 million research grant from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to manufacture MedLink, an innovative remote medical device and verbally programmable interactive remote patient monitoring device that physicians could use to monitor patients outside hospitals.

“The device measures blood pressure, blood glucose, pulse, heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, electrocardiography, body temperature and respiratory data.

“Despite the successes, FUPRE was facing challenges in infrastructural deficit, non-release of takeoff grant by the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF), non-implementation of the FUPRE Act and inadequate funding,” he said.

Social
Enable Notifications OK No thanks