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NNPCL’s Open-Ended Timeline for Port Harcourt Refinery Dampens Hopes of Petrol Scarcity Resolution

Published

4 months ago

Aug 18, 2024.

Ekohotblog reports that Nigerians’ optimism about the end of petrol scarcity this year has been significantly dampened following recent statements from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).

The company has now set an indefinite timeline for when the Port Harcourt Refining Company Limited will begin producing refined petroleum for local consumption, undermining earlier hopes that the refinery would be operational by the end of August.

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Despite the company’s assurance that the refinery’s production process is “on course,” the ambiguity of this timeline has left many Nigerians concerned.

The Port Harcourt refinery, with a capacity to refine 210,000 barrels of crude oil per day, has faced multiple delays in its rehabilitation.

The Ministry of Petroleum Resources and NNPCL have repeatedly extended deadlines for the renovation and revival of the country’s government-owned refineries, frustrating Nigerians who have been eagerly awaiting the resumption of local petroleum production.

The failure of all four of Nigeria’s refineries—in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna—to refine crude oil since 2019 has been a source of national concern.

However, despite public dissatisfaction, the sector’s officials have continued to promise that the country would soon begin to produce refined products.

In 2017, Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, then Minister of Petroleum Resources, vowed to resign if Nigeria did not begin refining crude oil by 2019 and exporting refined products by 2020.

However, these pledges did not materialize, and in 2019, all four refineries were shut down due to their inability to refine products, despite the country’s substantial investment in their annual Turn-Around Maintenance (TAM).

That same year, the federal government approved a $1.5 billion contract with Italian firm Maire Tecnimont for the repair of the Port Harcourt Refinery.

At the time, then Minister of Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, promised that Nigeria would cease fuel importation within a few years.

He projected that the first phase of the refinery’s rehabilitation would be completed within 18 months, restoring 90% of its capacity, with subsequent phases to be completed in 24 and 44 months, respectively.

Despite the significant funding and optimistic projections, the anticipated flow of products from the Port Harcourt Refinery before the end of the Buhari administration did not materialize.

NNPCL Group Chief Executive Officer, Mele Kyari, had assured Nigerians that the refinery would produce petrol by the first quarter of 2023, a promise that was later revised to the second quarter but ultimately went unfulfilled.

In August 2022, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, then Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), assured Nigerians that the Port Harcourt Refinery would resume operations by December 2022, promising that the country would stop importing petrol by February 2024.