The fanfare that greeted, the return to production, of the Port Harcourt Refinery appears to have turned to disappointment following reports that one of Nigeria’s government-owned Petro-chemical plants has shut down again.
The development is coming few days after the Dangote Refinery said it had reduced the price of petrol to N899.50 per litre, saying it took the decision to provide ‘relief’ for consumers ahead the yuletide period.
Recall that on November 26, 2024, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, Mele Kyari announced that the 60,000 barrel per day refinery has bounced back to life, after many years of inactivity.
The announcement comes barely four years after the federal government said it had allocated a whopping $1.5 billion for the turn-around maintenance of the refinery.
Amidst the media frenzy and Kyari’s efforts to convinced Nigerians that the refinery has started full-throttle, the NNPCL boss claimed that trucks have started loading PMS from the facility.
Kyari stated that 200 trucks of petrol will be loaded daily from the refinery, assuring that maintenance work has started in the other three refineries in the country, including 30,000 barrel per day Port Harcourt Refinery, Warri Refinery and the Kaduna Refinery.
That enthusiasm appears to have suddenly disappeared following reports that trucks have stopped loading petrol from the Port Harcourt Refinery, barely a month after NNPCL claimed that production has commenced.
According to The Punch, production at the refinery stopped on December 13, 2024 less than three week after the NNPCL claimed that it has bounced back to life.
Saturday PUNCH gathered that the lifting of petrol actually stopped on, December 13, as the 18-arm loading bay of the new Port Harcourt refinery was empty.
While about 18 trucks littered the stretch of the busy road leading to the refinery itself, nine trucks were spotted inside the parking yard, while the loading bay was empty.
The depot, which is usually a beehive of activities where tankers scramble for space at the parking yard, was a shadow of itself with literally no vehicular or human activity relating to operations.
Reacting to the development, a petroleum product marketer, Dappa Jubobaraye, said the claim that the refinery has started production was just a show put up by the NNPCL to deceive Nigerians, and to justify the $1.5 billion spent to revamp the plant.
Jubobaraye stated that only a few trucks of petrol were loaded at the refinery before it shut down again saying that “loading of PMS is not taking place” at the Refinery currently, adding that the claim that it has started production was meant to ‘deceive the people’.
The marketer stated, “It was intended to deceive Nigerians that the refinery is working and that is why they came up with that show. That day, only about four or five trucks loaded products.
“The loading meter was not calibrated yet before they started operation. Of the 18 loading arms at the bay only three are working and they have leakages. So, they have been trying to load three, four, five trucks, sometimes 10 just to show that they are working while they are not working.
“Since Mele Kyari came and left, the independent marketers have yet to load products from this depot because the NNPC is yet to fix prices for them to buy tickets and start loading products. They are only loading them to their own mega stations.
“The situation right now is that loading of PMS is not taking place because they don’t have the intention to make this place work. It is just to deceive the people.
“If you come into this place (depot), you will see trucks packed and think that loading is on; but the truth is that they are not working. Some tanker drivers have gone because they can’t come and waste time here.”
He said marketers have been lurking around the facility for days without product to load.
“How can you come here with the hope of loading and you stay here with your truck for two weeks, for what? Before the work stopped last week, they were loading up to 10, 15 but below 20.
“Ordinary one of the arms in the loading bay can load up to 20 to 30 trucks in a day. But for now, they are using only three arms out of the 18 loading arms inside the bay and the three are just for PMS alone. They have not started loading DPK (kerosene) and AGO (diesel). And kerosene is what concerns the ordinary more,” he said.
Meanwhile, energy experts insist that in spite of the shutdown at the Port Hartcourt Refinery, consumers need not worry of scarcity as the Dangote Refinery has enough products to supply across the country.
Update: Port Harcourt Refinery Not Shut Down; Report False
Discover more from The Source
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.