‘Port Harcourt refinery will commence operations by end of June,’ Corporation says

The Port Harcourt Refining Company Limited will start refining crude oil by the end of June 2015, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has said.

This was disclosed on Thursday, June 11, 2015, by the NNPC Group Managing Director, Joseph Dawha.

Dawha also said that the fuel scarcity still being experienced in some parts of the country would be over before the end of the week.

“Presently, the refineries are undergoing rehabilitation and we are undertaking what we call a new strategy to carry out the turnaround maintenance on them. Basically, what this means is that we are carrying out phased implementation of rehabilitation of the refineries,” he said.

“Most of the refineries have advanced to a certain stage where they will be able to operate very soon. For example, the Port Harcourt refinery, which has reached an advanced stage, will start receiving crude by end of this month and then of course will start contributing to the available products in the country,” he added.

NNPC has four refineries, two in Port Harcourt, and one each in Kaduna and Warri, but most of the petrol used in Nigeria is imported into the country.

A petroleum industry insider recently told Pulse that Nigeria suffers frequent fuel scarcities because its refineries have been shut down for over a year despite being able to produce 60% of the country’s petrol needs.

The insider also said that the refineries were shut down because importing gives more room for corruption and fraud.