Nigeria said Monday it had resumed some operations at its Warri oil refinery after nearly a decade of shutdowns, one of several long-running outages that have left Africa’s largest crude exporter importing most of its fuel.
The government has promised to revive its moribund refineries which have been hit by years of neglect, damage and accusations of mismanagement.
“This plant is working. We are not at 100 percent,” said Mele Kyari, director of national oil company NNPC, during a tour of the facility with government officials, regulators and journalists.
The 125,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery – whose closure in 2015 was blamed on dilapidation and crude shortages – was now operating at 60% capacity, according to a statement signed by the presidential spokesperson , Bayo Onanuga.
Four state-owned refineries with a combined capacity of 445,000 bpd – the Kaduna plant (110,000 bpd) in the north and three units in the oil-rich Niger Delta, including Warri, have been closed for years.
Last month, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said it had restarted the Port Harcourt refinery (60,000 bpd) in the Niger Delta. It had planned to restart the four refineries this year.
The 650,000 bpd private Dangote refinery, built by Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, began operating this year.
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