The cacophonous din that has overtaken the announcement of the resuscitation of the PortHarcourt Refinery is bothersome. If anything, it has tended to supplant the streak of hope and exhilaration that initially seeped through the land, drawing many Nigerians into a strop.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited(NNPCL) last Tuesday announced that the refinery had commenced operation that day after a rigmarole. The company’s Chief Corporate Communications Officer, Femi Soleye, had disclosed on his X handle that truck loading of petroleum products began at the plant the same day.
“PortHarcourt Refinery begins production; truck loading starts today, Tuesday,” Soneye had announced calmly and succinctly. This had expectedly sparked off momentary sparkles of brio and excitement among Nigerians and industry stakeholders.
The PortHarcourt Refinery is made up of two units. The old plant has a refining capacity of 60,000 barrels per day(bpd), while the new one is 150,000 bpd capacity, making a total of 210,000 bpd. It is the old plant that the NNPCL said was ready, while the new plant, according to the national oil behemoth, would also come on stream soon.
The salubrious welcome that trailed Tuesday’s sudden announcement resulted from the convoluted nature of the nation’s refinery rehabilitation journey. First, former President Muhammadu Buhari had in 2015 pledged to revive the nation’s refineries, which had been epileptic in spite of the billions of dollars that had been dissipated into their turn around maintenance(TAM), to optimize their capacity and boost foreign exchange by ending fuel importation.
Then, in November, 2018, the Buhari administration followed up by setting December, 2019 as the deadline for rehabilitating three of the four refineries to attain their full production capacity. The deadline, however, shifted to 2020. The deadline failed again but by June, 2020, government had spent N10.23 billion on the refineries, even though no single litre of refined product was processed.
In 2021, the Buhari government announced that repair works had started on the PortHarcourt Refinery after the Federal Executive Council approved $1.5billion for the project and contracted Italy’s Marie Tecnimont to handle the rehabilitation job. Nothing came out of the venture before Buhari left.
The Tinubu government, however, revivified hope in the project, promising to make it a reality. And by December, 2023, the government announced the “mechanical completion” and the “flare start-off” of the plant on schedule. The NNPCL followed up with the announcement that the test run of the plant would be completed in January, this year. But nothing happened still. NNPCL’s Chief Executive Officer, Mele Kyari, was to later hint that the plant would come on stream in April, this year. That too was not to be. So, the whole business about the refinery had become an anti-climax until the current fuss trailing the start of operation at the plant.
Critics of the newly revamped PortHarcourt Refinery dismissed it as a mere blending plant, saying it is not as productive as being claimed. The strongest and main whiff of opprobrium against the plant’s comeback came from the Secretary of the Alesa community stakeholders, Timothy Mgbere, who alleged that the petroleum products supposedly loaded at the plant were not freshly refined but products left in the storage tank of the facility in the last three years.
Mgbere, who was a guest on Arise TV last Thursday, claimed that contrary to the announcement that 200 trucks would be picked at the refinery daily, only six trucks were loaded on Tuesday. Alesa, the host community of the PortHarcourt Refinery, is one of the 10 major communities in Eleme, Rivers State.
The Alesa community leader said at the interview: “The Port Harcourt Refinery, and by extension, the Port Harcourt depot, happens to be the mainstay of the Alesa community economy; the economic activities emanating from the operations of these depots mean a lot to us as a community people, but as it were, now, I don’t think it’s a cause for celebration yet, because what we are having in the media space is different from what we have on the ground.
“I can tell you on authority as a community person, that what happened on Tuesday was just a mere show at the Port Harcourt depot. A mere show in the sense that the Port Harcourt refinery, we call it area five, that is the old refinery, is merely in skeletal operation.
“When I say skeletal, I mean that some units of the refinery were recently brought up and are running, but not the entire unit of the old refinery is functional, as we speak.
“I will give them the credit that at least they have started something, but not to say, according to the Head of Corporate Communications of the NNPC Ltd., Femi Soneye, like it is in the media that they are already producing 1.4 million barrels per day. That’s not the case. That’s not true.
“It’s a very big … I don’t want to use the word ‘lie’, but as an agency that is holding the oil industry on trust for Nigerians, they shouldn’t put out some of this information that is not true.”
He added: “The true picture of what happened on Tuesday is that the NNPC has been under pressure to televise to Nigerians that everything is okay and then that the old refinery has started functioning.
“I can tell you that the GMD, or the CEO of the refinery, was in Port Harcourt since Monday; the other MDs were also in Port Harcourt. The MD of Port Harcourt Refinery and those heading the operations department didn’t sleep through the night of Monday to Tuesday because of this whole event they had on Tuesday.
“What is the true picture? The old Port Harcourt Refinery is built with its utilities, different from the new complex. The tank farm that is servicing the old Port Harcourt Refinery has a different loading gantry at the depot.”
Mgbere refuted the claim that the refinery is producing 1.4million barrels of litres of petrol per day and advised the NNPCL to stop deceiving Nigerians with false information.
He added: “The party they had on Tuesday was held at the new loading gantry that is directly connected to the new refinery. And so, how does that work? It is impossible. They went there because the storage facility for the old refinery had some stock, old stock that has been there for over three years.
“And so what they had, they released that stock, and then loaded six trucks and then televised it to Nigerians that it is the production from the old refinery. That’s not true.
“And so I like Nigerians to know the truth, but they don’t need to believe me, because Nigerians, no matter how you paint the true pictures to them, they get sentimental. They get tribal. They want to whip some sentiment and all that about the product that was loaded. But let it be on record that it was only six trucks that they used to calibrate the new loading gantry. The product was not a new refined product from the old refinery.”
Mgbere’s revelations were a shocking, damning verdict that has smeared government’s credibility over its handling of the PortHarcourt Refinery. But NNPCL’s spokesman, Soleye, in a statement last Friday, responded to Mgbere, dismissing his allegations. He said Mgbere’s claims were a “crass display of ignorance” that demonstrated his lack of knowledge of the refinery’s operations.
“The attention of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) has been drawn to a video clip of one Timothy Mgbere, a self-acclaimed ‘community person’ who alleged that the much-publicised restreaming of the Port Harcourt and truck-out of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol), which held earlier in the week, were all false,” Soleye said.
He added: “We would have not bothered to reply him considering that all his assertions were a crass display of ignorance, which is consistent with his claim of being a ‘community person’ who does not necessarily have any knowledge about the workings of the Port Harcourt Refinery. But the need to set the records straight and not to mislead the public has constrained us to clarify”.
The NNPC chief corporate communications officer clarified that the old and new Port Harcourt refineries had been integrated with one single terminal for products load-out.
“This betrays his scant knowledge of the operations of the refinery. The old and new Port Harcourt refineries have since been integrated with one single terminal for products load-out. They share common utilities like power and storage tanks.”
This, according to Soleye, means that storage tanks and loading gantry, which Mgbere claimed belong to the new Port-Harcourt Refinery, can also receive products from the old PortHarcourt Refinery.
Soleye, had earlier in another statement, said that the PortHarcourt Refinery is operating at 70% of its installed capacity. ”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 refinery is producing the following daily outputs: 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 the 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,” he said.
“The refinery’s daily outputs”, he said, “are Straight-Run Gasoline (Naphtha) blended into 1.4 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS or petrol), Kerosene: 900,000 litres. Other petroleum fractions include Automotive Gas Oil (AGO or Diesel): 1.5 million litres, Low Pour Fuel Oil (LPFO): 2.1 million litres and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG). Additionally, we have made substantial progress on the new Port Harcourt Refinery, which will begin operations soon without prior announcements.”
The NNPCL has an ally in the Petroleum Products Retail Outlet Owners Association of Nigeria(PETROAN) whose spokesman, Joseph Obele, countered Mgbere’s claims that the refinery was not working, claiming: “We state emphatically that the old Port Harcourt Refinery is functional and producing refined petroleum products at the moment.”
He added: “On Tuesday, November 26, 2024, the top management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, led by Mele Kyari, took stakeholders and journalists to the plant with the view of having first-hand information and to see things themselves. The old Port Harcourt Refinery is currently operating at 70 % of its installed capacity, with plans to ramp up to 90 per cent.
“As part of PETROAN’s oversight function as key stakeholders, we have direct access to the plant on the authorisation of management and we will encourage whoever is doubting the functional status of the plant to contact NNPC management for a facility tour rather than spreading misleading information.
“It is more important to state here that the functional plant in operation is the old refinery with a capacity of 60,000 barrels per day, while the new port Harcourt refinery with a capacity of 150,000 barrels per day is still under rehabilitation, which is due to commence production soon as announced by the management of NNPCL. Both refineries are within the same complex at Alesa Eleme in Rivers State,” he stated further.
Obele posited that further confirmation of the authenticity of production at the Port Harcourt Refinery was verified by the Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources, under the leadership of Senator Kawu Sumaila, in conjunction with stakeholders and members of the host community”.
Obele claimed that the Senate Committee was on a fact-finding visit to the site on Thursday to see things themselves. He said: “The Senate Committee saw the plant functional and petroleum trucks loading at the Port Harcourt Refinery depot. It is worth noting that PETROAN national leadership, led by the National President, Dr. Billy Hary, were in attendance at the Senate Committee visitation at the Port Harcourt Refinery to welcome the committee and express PETROAN’s willingness to commence loading at the Port Harcourt Refinery.”
The government, through the NNPCL, owns it a duty to Nigerians and industry stakeholders to come clean about the whole fuss over the newly revamped PortHarcourt Refinery. The defence of NNPCL’s spokesman is fairly stout but it is not enough to clear the pollution of government’s credibility because the allegations from the Alesa host community leader are very weighty.
The endless twirl that has attended the resuscitation of the refinery does not help matters. One way the authorities could clear doubts over its handling of the project and restore its image is first, to allow a committee of impartial, independent(private sector)energy experts an unfettered access to the rehabilitated plant and all its units to verify the veracity or otherwise of government’s claims.
Energy correspondents should also be allowed to witness and cover the visitation of the experts, which should be publicized and televised live to Nigerians. At the end of the fact-finding visitation, a special press conference, which should also be televised live, should be held where the committee of experts would be required to field questions from newsmen to publicly speak on their findings.
Second, the veracity of the government’s claims should also be proved by NNPCL extending supplies from the refurbished plant beyond its outlets to all other marketers, both major and independent. Third, if everything is as the NNPCL painted it, then, it should in due course lead to a drastic reduction in the price of at least the premium motor spirit(PSM), otherwise known as petrol.
