- Insists product loading ongoing amid shut-down reports
Onome Amuge
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited has refuted recent claims alleging that the Old Port Harcourt Refinery, which resumed operations recently, has been shut down, emphasising that preparations for loading operations on Saturday are currently in progress.
NNPC Limited, in an official release signed by Olufemi O. Soneye, the chief corporate communications officer, maintained that reports of the refinery being shut down are totally false “as the refinery is fully operational as verified a few days ago by Mele Kyari, former Group Managing Director of NNPC.
It was earlier reported that the Port Harcourt Refining Company had stopped operating weeks after it appeared to restart production.
However, the NNPC has said that the report is false and preparation for the day’s (Saturday) loading operation is currently ongoing.
Soneye, reacting to a report that the refinery had stopped loading petroleum products barely one month after it was declared open, stated: “The attention of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has been drawn to reports in a section of the media alleging that the Old Port Harcourt Refinery which was re-streamed two months ago has been shut down.
“Members of the public are advised to discountenance such reports as they are the figments of the imagination of those who want to create artificial scarcity and rip-off Nigerians,” he stressed.
For decades, efforts to revive the Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC) seemed insurmountable. However, under Mele Kyari’s leadership, the once-elusive goal has been realised, signalling a critical step toward achieving energy self-sufficiency. This success is not only a milestone for the NNPCL but a testament to Kyari’s resolve to transform Nigeria’s energy landscape.
The Port Harcourt Refinery Company in Eleme is a sprawling facility divided into a 60,000-barrel-per-day-old refinery, and a new one capable of refining 150,000 barrels per day. The old refinery, operational since 1965, is Nigeria’s first refinery and had remained idle since 1990 when the newer unit became the primary production hub.
After over 30 years of dormancy, the old Port Harcourt refinery, which has a unique configuration where one barrel of crude oil yields a maximum of 23–24 per cent gasoline, was recently reopened by the NNPC Limited amid shock by forces against the revival of the country’s four refineries.
After the $1.5 billion approved by the Federal Government in 2021 for the comprehensive rehabilitation of the refinery had been judiciously spent, the NNPCL under Kyari’s sound leadership, reopened the Old Port Harcourt Refinery on Tuesday, November 26, 2024.
Today, the old Port Harcourt refinery is currently producing straight-run gasoline (Naphtha) blended into 1.4 million litres of PMS daily; 900,000 liters of kerosene; 1.5 million liters of Automotive Gas Oil (Diesel); 2.1 million liters of Low Pour Fuel Oil (LPFO), and additional volumes of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), also known as cooking gas.
Attempts by sceptics to rubbish the achievement recorded with the 60,000-barrel-per-day Port Harcourt refinery had been roundly repudiated by the NNPCL, workers at the refinery, experts, and delegates from the Presidency, Nigeria Labour Congress, Trade Union Congress, Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, and Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers.
