More questions have emerged over the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited’s (NNPCL) selection of two Chinese companies for the rehabilitation and operation of Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC) and Warri Petroleum Refining Company (WPRC), with combined nameplate capacity of 335,000 barrels per day (bpd).
New reports emerged earlier this week that the two Chinese companies, Sanjiang Chemical Company Limited and Xinganchen (Fuzhou) Industrial Park Operation and Management Co. Ltd lack the expertise in refinery operation.
NNPCL signed a new agreement with the Chinese firms to revive the two moribund oil refining facilities on a technical equity partnership (TEP), a model where the contractor-company and the client share technical expertise and financial risks.
Checks by Business A.M. indicate that Nigeria has spent nearly $25 billion (N11 trillion) between 2010 and 2023 on refinery rehabilitation projects, with the facilities never able to refine a barrel of oil in two decades. The direct consequence of this opaque financial wastage is huge importation of petroleum products, making Nigeria the only OPEC member involved in importation of refined products.
As of 2025, Nigeria spent $10 billion on petroleum products imports, down by 29 percent from $14.06 billion, according to data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The Port Harcourt refinery, with nameplate capacity of 210,000 bpd briefly restarted in late 2024 but was shut down again by May 2025 due to performance issues. This was after the Muhammadu Buhari administration spent $1.5 billion to rehabilitate the refinery.
Warri refinery, with nameplate capacity of 125,000 bpd has never been able to operate in more than 20 years.
Experts in petroleum downstream sector said Nigeria’s choice to walk away from a purely contractor-led repairs to a TEP model, which is a collaborative business model where a partner provides both specialized technical expertise and equity capital to a project or company, rather than just acting as a contractor or pure financier, is in line with the model frequently used in large-scale industrial projects such as oil refinery rehabilitations or mining operations.
According to these experts, the model ensures that the partner (contractor-company) has “skin in the game” regarding both the operational success and the financial performance of the venture.
Whereas industry watchers are yet to come to terms with the new report circulating to the effect that the Chinese companies hired by the NNPCL are incompetent in refinery operations, the Port Harcourt refinery host communities have been staging protests at the refinery area.
Since last week, women from Alesa community in Eleme Local Government Area and Okrika LGA of Rivers State embarked on a nude protests over the MOU, which they
described as “controversial”.
The protests entered the second week with agitations by the host communities against the refinery deal. Earlier, elderly women and youths barricaded the refinery gate, accusing the federal government and NNPCL of excluding host communities from negotiations surrounding the agreement.
Under the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), host communities are to be fully involved in negotiations of the oil deal under the Joint Community Relations Committee (JCRC).
Hence, Alesa-Eleme and Okrika are demanding the reconstitution of the JCRC for their greater inclusion in discussions concerning the future of the refinery.
Till date, the NNPCL is yet to make details of the MoU public. The agreement has continued to trigger anxiety among host communities, who insist they deserve proper representation and share in the benefits of any arrangement involving facilities located on their lands.
A leader of the protesting women, Catherine Abbey-Wai, said their community had been deprived of land for agriculture since the Port Harcourt refinery was sited in their community.
“The refinery is on our land. There is no more land left for us for farming. Besides, Fulani herdsmen continue to invade our land with cows. We reap no financial help from the refinery or anywhere”, Abbey-Wai said.
“The government is supposed to reach out to all of us, both young and old, men and women, chiefs and youths, so we can benefit from whatever they are doing,” she said further.
Another of the women leaders, Elizabeth Bouro, said the women would sustain the protests until the government addressed their concerns. “We’re supposed to benefit from this refinery, but we have not benefitted anything. If the government truly wants to sell the refinery to China, we’re supposed to have a meeting to discuss it so everybody benefits. But nothing like that happened”, she said.
State Police by design