The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has said the old Port Harcourt refinery has been rehabilitated to about 90 percent and could be returned to operation within one week if the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) decides to do so.
Festus Osifo, President of PENGASSAN, made this known while speaking on a local TV programme early Tuesday.
According to him, the refinery is technically fit to operate, but commercial considerations, particularly profitability, are influencing NNPC’s decision on when to restart the facility.
Read also: Ojulari, NNPCL boss, links refinery shutdown to foreign exchange stability
“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,” Osifo said. “However, NNPCL as a company is there to make a profit. So, if they want to start it today, within the next one week, they can bring it back to life.”
He explained that despite the extensive rehabilitation work completed, the economics of refining remain a concern, noting that the cost of crude oil could outweigh the value of the refined products.
“It has been rehabilitated up to about 90 percent. But the challenge is that if you feed crude oil worth, say, five million dollars into the old Port Harcourt refinery, what you are likely to get at the other end when you sell the petroleum products may be about $4.5 million,” he said.
Read also: Ojulari, NNPCL boss, links refinery shutdown to foreign exchange stability
Osifo, however, maintained that the funds spent on rehabilitating the refinery were not wasted, stressing that critical infrastructure had been upgraded.
“The money that was thrown into 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 take them away,” he said.
He added that the refinery’s asset value has significantly improved following the rehabilitation.
“If you value the refinery today, it will be much more valuable than the state it was in before the rehabilitation,” Osifo said.
The Port Harcourt Refining Company was reopened in November 2024 as part of the rehabilitation programme, but was shut down again in May 2025 due to operational challenges. Operations at the facility remain suspended.
