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PORT HARCOURT REFINERY ANNOUNCES RESUMPTION OF FULL OPERATION
The Port Harcourt refinery has announced the resumption of full operations after temporarily scaling down.
This was made known by the Managing Director of the refinery, Mr Ibrahim Onoja, while addressing journalists after a facility tour of the refinery on Sunday, December 1, 2024, where he revealed that the facility had resumed distribution of products, including Premium Motor Spirit, kerosene, and diesel.
This is as the controversy surrounding the resumption of operations of the Port Harcourt refinery rages on with some stakeholders expressing doubts over the announcement by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited.
Onoja said, ”The refining plant has undergone extensive upgrades to enhance efficiency and reliability which had also impacted production capacity.
”We replaced most of the equipment including pump installation and cables.
“The plant is running and we are trucking out our products.’’
Speaking at the occasion, the Director of Operations of the Nigeria Pipeline Storage Company (NPSC) Ltd, Mr Moyi Maidunama, acknowledged a temporary reduction in production.
He, however, explained that the reduction was to help address some technical issues aimed at improving the delivery capacity of the facility.
He said, ”We are managing the process with the number of trucks available today, using three loading arms for evacuation, this will be resolved soon.
”Our operations were not totally halted but reduced due to some of the improvements that we needed to make in terms of getting more loading arms operational.
”We have been evacuating refined petroleum products from the refinery since yesterday and it’s obviously going to be a continuous process.’’
Also, the terminal manager, Mr. Worlu Joel, confirmed the efficiency of the refinery, adding that it had begun loading Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), kerosene, and diesel.
He said that the depot which has 11 functional loading bays currently uses only 3 due to its high efficiency, adding that each of the bay evacuates as much as 3 trucks in 15 minutes.
He, however, expressed worries over the slow turnout of tanker drivers.
He said, ”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.’’
What you should know
Recall that on November 26, 2024, the NNPC announced that the Port Harcourt refinery had begun production after a long period of rehabilitation.
It stated that the newly rehabilitated complex of the old Port Harcourt refinery, which had been revamped and upgraded with modern equipment, is operating at a refining capacity of 70% of its installed capacity.
NNPC added that diesel and Pour Fuel Oil would be the highest output from the refinery, with a daily capacity of 1.5 million litres and 2.1 million litres, respectively.
However, a leader of the Alesa community stakeholders, the host community of the refinery, Timothy Mgbere, alleged that the petroleum products loaded from the newly rehabilitated Port-Harcourt Refinery were not freshly refined but products left in the storage tank of the facility in the last 3 years.
He also alleged that the refinery only loaded 6 trucks on Tuesday despite stating that 200 trucks would be picked up from the refinery daily.
Also, a few days ago, there were reports that the refinery had stopped operations as there was no activity on site, with some workers claiming that the refinery was undergoing calibration which might last till next week.
The Port Harcourt Refining Company in its clarification said that its operations were not completely halted but scaled down to facilitate improvements at the facility.
