Kyari: Port Harcourt refinery will commence production in August

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited says the Port Harcourt refinery will begin operations in early August. 

Mele Kyari, NNPC’s group chief executive officer (GCEO), said the operationalisation of the refinery is one of the emerging indicators in the energy and gas sector that Nigeria would become a net exporter of petroleum products by December.

Kyari spoke on Monday at the national assembly when economic stakeholders appeared before the senate committee on finance led by Sani Musa, a lawmaker.

The NNPC GCEO said in a few months time, oil production level for the country would hit 2 million barrels per day (bpd) as all enablement towards this has already been put in place. 

The oil and gas industry, according to Kyari, is very critical in bringing a turnaround in the current economic situation and “we understand the importance of this”.

“We have already seen growth in our oil and gas production because of certain actions that Mr. President personally took, and also the very mere truth that we have also declared a war on production activities, and this is yielding the required results,” he said.

“The combination of these two has now seen us restoring production in our country, and we believe that, as the Honorable minister has said, we will soon hit the target of  2 million barrels oil  production per day.

“Specific to NNPC refineries, we have spoken to a number of your committees, that it is impossible to have the Kaduna refinery come to operation before December, it will  get to December, both Warri and Kaduna; but that of Portharcourt will commence production early August this year.”

Kyari had said the refinery would begin production by the end of March, but this has not happened.

TheCable had reported that president recently expressed concerns over the NNPC’s failure to deliver critical projects including the Port Harcourt refinery.

But Heineken Lokpobiri, minister of state for petroleum resources (oil), said such projects often take time, adding that the refinery is at its final rehabilitation stage.