NNPCL Can Bring PH Refinery Back To Life Within One Week — PENGASSAN

The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has said the old Port Harcourt Refinery is technically ready for operation and could be brought back on stream within one week, but remains idle due to concerns over profitability and operating economics.

The President of PENGASSAN, Mr. Festus Osifo, disclosed this on Tuesday while speaking as a guest on Channels Television, noting that although the refinery has been rehabilitated to about 90 per cent, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) is weighing the cost implications of resuming operations.

According to Osifo, from a technical standpoint, the refinery can be restarted almost immediately if management approves the decision.

However, he stressed that the key obstacle is the imbalance between the cost of crude oil input and the value of refined products output.

“As of today, you can start the old Port Harcourt refinery and it will function. You can put it on today and it will function. But NNPCL is a commercial entity and has to make a profit. If they decide to start it, within one week it can be brought back to life,” he said.

Osifo explained that under current market conditions, the refinery risks operating at a loss, as the cost of crude oil supplied to the plant may exceed the revenue generated from the sale of refined petroleum products.

“If you feed crude oil worth about five million dollars into the old Port Harcourt refinery, what you are likely to get at the other end when you sell the products may be around 4.5 million dollars. That means you put in five million dollars and get 4.5 million dollars as output,” he explained.

Despite the delay in restarting operations, the PENGASSAN president maintained that the funds committed to rehabilitating the refinery were not wasted.

He said the exercise significantly upgraded the facility, with major components replaced to improve its overall value and long-term viability.

“The money that was spent on the Port Harcourt refinery is not a loss. Almost all the compressors were changed, the control rooms were changed, and the panels were all changed. The contractors did not remove these assets,” Osifo said.

He added that the refinery is now in a far better condition than before the rehabilitation, noting that its asset value has increased substantially.

“If you value the refinery today, it will be much more valuable than the state it was in before the rehabilitation,” he said.

The Port Harcourt Refining Company was reopened in November 2024 following years of inactivity as part of the Federal Government’s refinery rehabilitation programme.

However, operations were suspended again in May 2025 due to operational and economic challenges.