NMDPRA: Port Harcourt Refinery Supplies Diesel Despite Shutdown

The shutdown of the Port Harcourt Refining Company for maintenance has now entered its seventh month, with operations yet to resume. The refinery was initially scheduled to be taken offline for one month, but more than seven months later, it has not restarted fuel production.
The Port Harcourt refinery had been declared operational in November 2024 after years of inactivity. At the time, it was announced that the 60,000-barrel-per-day facility had resumed operations following extensive rehabilitation and upgrades, and was running at about 70 per cent of its installed capacity. The refinery was expected to prioritise the production of diesel and low-pour fuel oil, with daily outputs projected at 1.5 million litres and 2.1 million litres, respectively.
Plans also indicated that the refinery would produce straight-run gasoline blended into 1.4 million litres of premium motor spirit daily, alongside 900,000 litres of kerosene and additional volumes of fuel oil. It was further projected that about 200 trucks of petrol would be supplied to the domestic market each day.
However, about six months after the widely publicised completion of rehabilitation and resumption of operations, the facility was shut down once again. A similar situation occurred at the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company, which was declared operational in December but closed roughly a month later.
Upon assuming office, the new leadership of the national oil company reviewed the condition of the Port Harcourt refinery and concluded that it was operating at a significant loss. It was disclosed that the refinery had been losing between $300 million and $500 million monthly, with less than 40 per cent of the crude supplied being effectively processed. The decision to suspend operations was described as a measure to halt further losses while options for making the refinery commercially viable were explored.
Meanwhile, the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria has renewed calls for the privatisation of the country’s four state-owned refineries, urging the Federal Government to complete the process transparently by the first quarter of 2026. The association argued that privatisation would reduce the financial burden on the government, improve efficiency, attract private investment and technical expertise, and align the refining sector with global standards.
Despite these calls, the sale of the refineries has previously been ruled out by the national oil company’s leadership, which maintains that ongoing technical and commercial reviews are aimed at repositioning the plants as sustainable, revenue-generating assets capable of meeting domestic fuel demand and operating in line with international best practices.