Sell Port Harcourt Refinery & others to fund modular plants – Crude Oil efiners Association Tells NNPCL

The Crude Oil Refiners Association of Nigeria has appealed to the Nigerian National Petroleum Company and the federal government to sell the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries.

CORAN Publicity Secretary, Eche Idoko made this call in a recent statement.

According to him, the $1.5 billion spent on the rehabilitation of Port Harcourt Refinery would have been used to build and support modular refineries that can help the country address its energy crisis.

He said ten additional modular refineries together with Dangote Refinery would end the importation of fuel into Nigeria.

Idoko revealed that Nigeria has 15 modular refineries of which 5 are operational without producing Petrol, and others are in various completion stages.

He further appealed to the Government to fund modular refineries as a solution to Nigeria’s energy crisis.

“The $1.5bn spent on the Port Harcourt refinery could be used to develop 10 modular refineries to be able to produce PMS of a minimum of 10,000 barrels per day. That is about 100,000 barrels a day.

“And if you have 100,000 barrels per day, at least, with the Dangote refinery, you would have solved that problem. We would have enough to begin to export,” he stated.

“Right now, we have about 15 of them – five are operating but not producing PMS; the other 10 are at various stages of completion.

“If the government supported these 15 modular refineries to produce PMS, in about 12 months or less, they would have solved this problem of fuel scarcity, rather than say, you are putting money into the Port Harcourt refinery, Warri refinery, or Kaduna refinery,” he added.

His comments come as NNPCL said the Port Harcourt Refinery would commence commercial operation in September 2024 after several missed deadlines.

Also, the 650,000 barrels per day Dangote Refinery is expected to start production of petrol in September, according to government sources.