The Board and Management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd.) have issued a statement, denying that the newly launched Port Harcourt Refinery is not producing petroleum products.
The statement signed on Tuesday by the NNPC spokesperson, Olufemi Soneye, said that the 60,000 barrels-per-day Old Port Harcourt Refinery is currently operating at 70%, outlining its products.
“We are, however, aware of unfounded claims by certain individuals suggesting that the refinery is not producing products. For clarity, the Old Port Harcourt Refinery is currently operating at 70% of its installed capacity, with plans to ramp up to 90%,” the statement said.
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It explained that the refinery is producing the following daily outputs:
• Straight-Run Gasoline (Naphtha): Blended into 1.4 million liters of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS or petrol)
• Kerosene: 900,000 liters
• Automotive Gas Oil (AGO or Diesel): 1.5 million liters
• Low Pour Fuel Oil (LPFO): 2.1 million liters
• Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG): Additional volumes
“It is worth noting that the refinery incorporates crack C5, a blending component from our sister company, Indorama Petrochemicals (formerly Eleme Petrochemicals), to produce gasoline that meets required specifications. Blending is a standard practice in refineries globally, as no single unit can produce gasoline that fully complies with any country’s standards without such processes.
“Additionally, we have made substantial progress on the new Port Harcourt Refinery, which will begin operations soon without prior announcements,” the NNPC said.
The statement was necessitated by a Sahara Reporters report, debunking the announcement of production and trucking at the refinery. Citing sources, the report revealed that the NNPCL instead bought “Cracked C5 petroleum resins” and blended it with other products including Naphtha to sell to the Nigerian public as though the refinery processed it.
Top sources familiar with the activities of the company and the state of the refinery told Sahara Reporters that the claim of trucking out PMS from the reopened refinery was a lie.
The sources were quoted as saying, “The plant is running but it is the old one of 60,000bpd capacity but you can’t get PMS from it except diesel. The part that produces PMS is yet to start.”
“If you hear they are trucking out PMS from the depot, know it is a lie. They bought Crack C5 from Indorama company in Port Harcourt and blended it with Naphtha to sell to the public.”
The source added, “Cracked 5 is modified petroleum resins.”
Indorama Eleme Petrochemicals Limited (IEPL) is a Group Company of Indorama Corporation, a Poly-Olefins producer based in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Meanwhile, Naphtha can be produced from a variety of sources, including crude oil, natural-gas condensates, petroleum distillates, coal tar, and peat.
However, Sahara Reporters was reliably informed that the company only bought Cracked C5 petroleum resins from Indorama and blended it with other products including Naphtha to sell to Nigerians.
A large section of Nigerians have echoed this sentiment. Energy analyst Kelvin Emmanuel had earlier hinted that the NNPC is building a blending plant instead of a refinery. It could be recalled that Aliko Dangote, the Chairman of Dangote Refinery, earlier this year accused the NNPC of running a blending plant in Malta to sabotage his refinery.
Emmanuel said the whole idea behind the rehabilitation of the Old Port Harcourt Refinery is to bring the blending plant home.
“After the alarm was raised on ‘Malta’ and ‘Lome’, someone came up with the idea of:
““Shebi we can relocate the blending over a period of time to Nigeria, turn the failed TAM into a blending plant, and claim it’s a refinery, after all, who will check to confirm”
“Then to avoid sanction, we’ll simply use bunkering hub in Central Europe for transshipment to land off-spec RON to Okirika Jetty, and then use intervention stock to continue ‘modified carry agreements’ for financing the offtake of off-spec,” he said earlier this month.
He added that the National Assembly Committees in both houses for mid and downstream know nothing!
The sources who spoke to Sahara Reporters alluded to this claim: “The refinery is in two parts. The old refinery, built in 1965, has a 60,000 barrel capacity, which, when commissioned, will only give you 1 million liters of PMS. You have the new refinery, built in 1989, which has a 150,000 barrels per stream day capacity.
“If commissioned, it will give you 10 million liters of PMS. As of today, when they say Port Harcourt refinery is coming on stream, they are referring to the old one which we have been battling with for months.
“The new one is far from ready. We are looking at 2026 for the new one to be ready. If we finally commission the old one, it will be insignificant because Nigeria will not feel the impact,” the source noted.