Nigeria’s national oil company on Tuesday resumed operation of a refinery in Port Harcourt, in the heart of the Delta oil region, in the southeast of the country, following renovations delayed seven times.
This is one of the company’s four refineries which were closed in 2020 for modernization.
Mele Kyari, managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL), organized a site visit and employees presented samples of petroleum, kerosene and diesel to authorities.
For years, gasoline has been subsidized in the country in order to keep its price at an affordable level.
In 2023, shortly after his election, President Bola Tinubu removed a fuel subsidy, triggering a surge in prices and protests.
In a press release, he thanked the African bank Afreximbank on Tuesday for financing the modernization of the refinery, included in a $1.5 billion agreement signed in March 2021, which provided for a production capacity of 210,000 barrels for the site. per day (bpd).
He also urged the NNPC to “accelerate the planned reactivation” of its second refinery in Port Harcourt and the two others it controls, in Warri and Kaduna, in a press release signed by his advisor Bayo Onanuga.
NNPCL had closed its four domestic refineries in 2020 as operations were no longer deemed viable due to aging and vandalized pipelines.
According to Adewale Dosunmu, a professor of petroleum engineering at the University of Port Harcourt, the revival of the refinery will have a knock-on effect on the economy.
It will contribute to the local development of technical skills, in addition to the regular supply of petroleum products, he told AFP.
“The by-products of the refining process will be readily available as a market outlet for other small businesses,” he said.
This is the second refinery to come on stream in Nigeria since September.
The other is that of Dangote, privately owned by Nigerian tycoon Aliko Dangote, ranked in 2024 by Forbes magazine as “the richest man in Africa” for the thirteenth consecutive year, at the head of a conglomerate active in cement, sugar or even fertilizers.
