Nigerian Company NNPCL Confirms Reduced Operations At Port-Harcourt Refinery, Says Upgrade Ongoing
Adedokun Waliyu 
The management of the Port-Harcourt refinery of the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPCL) has reacted to reports that activities at the refinery were “shut down”, adding that there was reduction in operations due to an upgrade of the facility.
The Executive Director of Operations at the Nigerian Pipeline and Storage Company Limited (NPSC), Moyi Maidunama, also claimed that the refinery had not halted operations.
Speaking to journalists on December 1 during a tour of the refinery, he stated that the operations at the refinery reduced because of major adjustments that needed to be made.
“We are evacuating the refined products from the refinery and this is obviously going to be a continuous process. We have done a couple of trucks today and intend to do many more today,” he said.
“So, the operations were not halted. It was obviously reduced due to some improvements that we needed to make.
“We are managing the process with the number of trucks available today, using a few loading arms for evacuation. This should be resolved soon.”
Commenting on the development, Molokwuu Joel, who is the terminal manager of Port-Harcourt depot, claimed the facility had commenced the distribution of products.
He said that the products distributed included premium motor spirit (petrol), kerosene, and diesel.
“We have our loading arms operational and we have been begging them (petroleum marketers) to come in since yesterday but because today is weekend that is why they have not turned up. If you give us 100 trucks today we will evacuate them in less than 5 hours,” he said.
“So it is not our problem if there are no loading trucks, it is the tanker drivers’ problem. We have been begging them since yesterday to come around and take the products but they didn’t turn up, it was just this morning after pleading with them that they came.”
SaharaReporters on Saturday reported that the Port-Harcourt refinery was shut down operation “at the moment” with only its non-petroleum unit running which is the Crude Distillation Unit (CDU) running.
It had been reported that the CDU produces naphtha, kerosene and diesel but cannot produce the component which is needed for the Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) otherwise known as petrol, according to top sources at the refinery.
“The Crude Distillation Unit (CDU) is still running but the operation of the depot is shut down at the moment. The CDU produces naphtha, diesel and Kerosene but cannot produce the component for the production of PMS,” the source had revealed.
“All these products cannot serve the masses as the production of these products are in small quantities even if the plant runs at 100% throughput. The processing plant of 150,000bpd capacity will commence operations in 2026; that is if money is made readily available to meet the timelines because at the moment the project has exceeded $2billion,” sources said.
