The Port Harcourt Refining Company in Rivers State has recommenced operation in line with the Federal Government’s promise to ensure the production of refined products at the facility in December 2023.
The development is coming after many years of underperformance and turnaround maintenance of the facility.
Four of Nigeria’s refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna have a combined capacity to process 445,000 barrels per day (bpd) but they were shut down in 2019.
However, in August, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil) Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, said the Port Harcourt refinery will recommence operations in December.
Lokpobiri said this during an inspection tour of the rehabilitation work at the PHRC Ltd. plant
“Our objective in coming here today is to ensure that in the next few years, Nigeria stops fuel importation. From what we have seen here today, Port Harcourt Refinery will come on board by the end of the year,” he said in August.
Meanwhile, the Future Nigeria Movement (FNM) has described President Bola Tinubu as a promise keeper for reopening the Port Harcourt refinery.
The leader of FNM, Livingstone Wechie, said the turnaround was hitherto used by some agents of the federal government to siphon billions of dollars, saying that Tinubu ended such practice by ensuring its completion.
He said: “The news of the coming back on stream of the Port Harcourt Refinery is very cheering, particularly with the reported completion of the mechanical phase of the turnaround maintenance that had been a running conduit to fleece public funds in billions of dollars.
Wechie appealed that the development should be extended to the Warri and Kaduna refineries and should also help to crash the prices of petroleum products.
Source: Channels TV/THE NATION
