The Port Harcourt Refinery has officially resumed full operations, following a temporary reduction in its activities. This announcement was made by the refinery’s Managing Director, Mr. Ibrahim Onoja, during a press briefing after a facility tour on Sunday, December 1, 2024. Mr. Onoja confirmed that the refinery has started distributing various refined petroleum products, including Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), kerosene, and diesel.
The resumption comes amid ongoing controversy and skepticism regarding the true status of the refinery's operations, with several stakeholders questioning the claims made by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Limited. Some critics have expressed doubts over whether the facility is truly operational or if the products being distributed are from earlier stockpiles rather than fresh refinements.
In his address, Onoja highlighted that the refinery had undergone substantial upgrades to improve its efficiency and reliability. According to the Managing Director, "We replaced most of the equipment, including pump installations and cables." He emphasized that these improvements had a direct impact on the plant's production capacity, and assured that the refinery was now operational and actively distributing refined products.
Despite these assurances, the refinery’s operations had temporarily scaled down due to technical upgrades, as confirmed by Mr. Moyi Maidunama, Director of Operations at the Nigeria Pipeline Storage Company (NPSC) Ltd. Maidunama explained that the reduction in production was necessary to address certain technical issues, particularly the need to increase the number of operational loading arms to facilitate product evacuation. "We are managing the process with the number of trucks available today, using three loading arms for evacuation. This will be resolved soon," Maidunama said.
The refinery's terminal manager, Mr. Worlu Joel, also provided an update on the refinery’s loading efficiency, noting that although there were 11 functional loading bays at the depot, only three were currently in use due to the high efficiency of the operation. Each of these bays is capable of evacuating three trucks in just 15 minutes. However, Joel voiced concerns over the slow turnout of tanker drivers. "We have surplus product. Let’s say we have up to 100 trucks today, we will evacuate them in five hours. It’s no longer our problem, it’s the tanker drivers," he stated.
The NNPC had previously announced on November 26, 2024, that the refinery had resumed production after a long period of rehabilitation. The state-owned company confirmed that the newly refurbished Port Harcourt refinery, now equipped with modern technology, was operating at 70% of its installed refining capacity. At full capacity, the refinery is expected to produce significant quantities of diesel and Pour Fuel Oil, with daily outputs of 1.5 million liters and 2.1 million liters, respectively.
However, not everyone is convinced by the NNPC's claims. Timothy Mgbere, a leader of the Alesa community stakeholders—the host community of the refinery—alleged that the products being loaded from the refinery were not newly refined, but rather products left in the facility’s storage tanks for the past three years. He also raised concerns about the refinery’s underwhelming output, claiming that only six trucks were loaded on a particular day despite earlier reports stating that 200 trucks would be dispatched daily from the site.
In contrast to these concerns, NNPC’s clarification emphasized that the refinery’s operations were not completely halted but were briefly scaled down in order to facilitate essential improvements. This scale-down, the company explained, was crucial to ensuring the long-term efficiency and effectiveness of the refinery.
