The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has refuted allegations made by Timothy Mgbere, a leader from the Alesa community in Rivers State, regarding the operational status of the Port Harcourt Refinery.
Mgbere, speaking on Arise television on Thursday, accused the NNPCL of misleading Nigerians by claiming that the refinery is processing crude oil, asserting instead that it is not yet operational.
Responding in a statement on Friday, NNPCL’s spokesperson, Olufemi Soneye, described Mgbere’s remarks as a display of “crass ignorance” about refinery operations. Soneye stated that the company felt compelled to address the misinformation to set the record straight.
“Mgbere claimed that the old Port Harcourt Refinery is operating only skeletally and not processing PMS. His so-called evidence was that the PMS truck-out occurred at the gantry of the new Port Harcourt Refinery, rather than the old one,” Soneye said.
“This demonstrates his limited understanding of refinery operations. The old and new Port Harcourt Refineries are now integrated and share a single terminal for product load-out. They also share common utilities such as power and storage tanks. This means that storage tanks and loading gantries, which he claimed belong to the new refinery, can also handle products from the old refinery,” he clarified.
Soneye further noted that Mgbere’s statements contradicted themselves. “He alleged that the PMS loaded from the gantry of the new refinery was ‘old stock’ from the old refinery. If this is the case, how did the ‘old stock’ get to the loading gantry of the new refinery?”
He continued: “By his flawed logic, old PMS stock can be moved from the old refinery to the new refinery’s gantry for a show, but newly produced PMS from the old refinery cannot be loaded at the same gantry. This is ignorance at its peak!”
Providing details on the refinery’s current capacity, Soneye explained: “The nameplate capacity of the refinery is 60,000 barrels of oil per day. It is presently operating at 90% throughput, producing Straight-Run gasoline (Naphtha) blended into 1.4 million litres of PMS, alongside other products like diesel and kerosene.”
Soneye concluded by urging the public to disregard Mgbere’s claims, describing them as “sheer mischief and a blatant display of ignorance.”
