The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has clarified that the newly activated 60, 000 barrels per day old Port Harcourt is currently working at 90 per cent capacity, and not 70 per cent as stated by The Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN). PETROAN had on Thursday said the refinery is currently operating at 70 per cent of its installed capacity, with plans to ramp up to 90 per cent.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) on Tuesday announced that the Port Harcourt refinery has commenced crude oil refining. In a statement titled “Halt the rumours: Port Harcourt old refinery is up and running, producing by-products of crude oil”, and signed by its spokesperson on Thursday, Joseph Obele, PETROAN noted that as part of its oversight function, it has direct access to the plant on the authorisation of management.
The statement further read, “It is more important to state here that the functional plant at operation is the old refinery with the capacity of 60,000 barrels per day, while the new port Harcourt refinery with the capacity of 200,000 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. However, in a statement signed by NNPCL’s spokesperson, Olufemi Soneye on Friday, said although the nameplate of the refinery is 60, 000 barrels of oil per day, it is now functioning at 90 per cent capacity.
“There are a number of other wild claims made by the man, one of which was that the refinery was producing 1.4 million barrels per day. The nameplate capacity of the refinery is 60,000 barrels of oil per day. It is currently producing at 90 per cent throughput which translates to Straight-Run Gasoline (Naptha) blended into 1.4million litres of PMS, aside from other products like diesel and kerosene.” The company was also addressing an allegation by one of the community persons, Timothy Mgbere, that the refinery was not worth celebrating, as it was merely blending and had pushed out old stock.
