President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday, January 26, 2018 said that it was disgraceful that none of Nigeria’s refineries currently performs at 50 percent capacity.
Buhari also recollected that in the 80’s, Nigeria exceeded the petroleum demands of the local market.
Buhari made the statement while receiving a delegation from Eni, led by the Chief Upstream Officer, Antonio Vella, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
According to a statement by Femi Adesina, a spokesperson to President Buhari, the president said, “In my first coming, all our refineries were working. Port Harcourt used to refine 60,000 barrels per day, and it was later upgraded to 100,000 barrels.
“Kaduna and Warri were also working optimally, and we used to satisfy the demands of the local market. We also exported 100,000 barrels of refined petrol.
“Now, no refinery is performing up to 50%. It is a disgraceful thing.”
Nigeria has four refineries, two in Port Harcourt (PHRC), and one each in Kaduna (KRPC) and Warri (WRPC). The refineries have a combined installed capacity of 445,000 bpd. A comprehensive network of pipelines and depots strategically located throughout Nigeria links these refineries.
The PHRC is made up of two refineries, located at Alesa Eleme near Port Harcourt with a jetty (for product import and export). The jetty is located 7.5km away from the refinery complex. In 1983, the Port Harcourt refinery with 60,000 bpsd name plate CDU capacity and the tankage facilities were acquired by NNPC from SHELL. Subsequently, a new 150,000 bpsd export refinery was built in 1988 and commissioned in 1989. Therefore, the current combined installed capacity of PHRC is 210,000 bpsd.
