P’Harcourt refinery shuts down again
The Port-Harcourt Refining Company has stopped operating, just weeks after it appeared to restart production.
Recall that there were earlier reports during a recent visit to the refinery on December 19, showing that the facility was no longer producing PMS
The refinery stopped distributing gasoline on December 13. When visited, the facilitys 18-arm loading area, where trucks normally fill up with petrol, was empty. While 18 trucks were parked along the main road to the refinery, and 9 more were in the parking area, none were being loaded. The usually busy depot was quiet, with almost no people or vehicles involved in operations.
On November 26, 2024, Mele Kyari, who leads the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, (NNPCL) reopened the refinery with much celebration. The facility was supposed to produce 60,000 barrels of oil per day after receiving $1.5 billion in March 2021 for repairs.
During the reopening ceremony, some trucks were loaded with gasoline while crowds cheered. However, reports indicate only about 10 trucks received fuel that day; not the 200 trucks that some had claimed. Some sources suggest that even this fuel may have been old supply from storage tanks rather than newly refined products.
Three weeks ago, the loading area was found empty. The Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria had explained at that time that this was due to equipment calibration and the removal of water from old fuel supplies.
