Nigeria restarts the Port Harcourt Refinery

LAGOS, November 27, 2024 – Nigeria’s NOC NNPC has restarted the old Port Harcourt Refinery after a years-long rehabilitation, chief corporate communications officer Olufemi Soneye reported in a statement on Tuesday.

The Port Harcourt Refinery comprises an old and a new plant that together have a capacity of 210,000 bpd. The old refinery is already producing at 70% of its 60,000-bpd capacity, and the new plant is set to come back online by mid-2025, NNPC stated. Product loadings commenced from the same time as the announcement.

The old refinery has a current daily production of Naphtha that is blended into 1.4 million litres of petrol, 900,000 litres of kerosene, 1.5 million litres of automotive gas oil, 2.1 million litres of low pour fuel oil and volumes of LPG.

The two plants were originally shut down in 2020, along with three other national refineries. The Port Harcourt Refinery received a USD 1.5-billion investment for their refurbishment.

The completion of the Port Harcourt Refinery’s rehabilitation comes at an opportune moment, as Nigeria has seen fuel prices soar following the liberalisation of its fuel retail market in May 2023. The country is simultaneously reducing its dependence on petroleum-product imports through the new Dangote Refinery, the rehabilitation of older refineries and the planned building of several modular refineries.

Photo courtesy of NNPC

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