Nigeria National Petroleum Co. Ltd. (NNPC) has announced an operational stop at the Port Harcourt refinery for planned maintenance, a year after restarting from a years-long hiatus.
It did not say how long the shutdown, which also includes a “sustainability assessment”, would last.
“We are working closely with all relevant stakeholders, including the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, to ensure the maintenance and assessment activities are carried out efficiently and transparently”, NNPC said in a brief online statement.
“NNPC Ltd remains steadfast in its commitment to delivering sustainable energy security for Nigeria”.
On March 19, 2025, NNPC acknowledged a “minor incident” at the refinery but said the refinery continued to produce “on-spec refined petroleum products”.
Last year Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd. (SPDC), now part of Nigerian consortium Renaissance Africa Energy Holdings, resumed oil supply to the refinery.
“The crude supply resumed early in the year after a prolonged outage of over five years, during which time the refinery underwent rehabilitation and integrity activities on its supply pipeline from the terminal”, SPDC said in a press release February 12, 2024.
The Rivers State refinery has a total crude distillation capacity of 210,000 barrels per day at two plants. The older of the two was built 1965 while the second was built 1989, according to online information from the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC).
In 2019 NNPC launched a rehabilitation of the refinery under a two-phase $1.5-billion project, according to information from the NIPC and the Nigerian Television Authority. Phase one targeted to raise the utilization rate to 60 percent while the second phase involved raising the utilization rate to 90 percent.
The NNPC said November 26, 2024, the refinery was operating at 70 percent of its capacity. It reaffirmed the plan to improve utilization to 90 percent.
Recently the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) said it has acquired a 20 percent stake in a project to build a 100,000-bpd refinery that will rise in the Port Harcourt refinery complex. NNPC owns 15 percent of the project.
“The promoters of the project, African Refinery Group, had in 2016 won a competitive bid to co-locate a crude oil refinery within the site of the Port Harcourt Refinery Complex, and it executed an agreement to run and operate a 100,000 BPD refinery on 45 hectares of vacant land within the battery limit of the refinery complex”, the NCDMB said March 9, 2025, announcing its acquisition.
“The company also signed a sub-lease agreement with NNPC in 2019, giving her 45.466 hectares within the refinery complex for a tenure of 64 years.
“According to the investment plan, NCDMB will divest from the refinery at the end of the seventh year, counting from the commercial operations date”.
To contact the author, email jov.onsat@rigzone.com
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