The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited has announced that the Port Harcourt refinery will commence operations in early August.
Mele Kyari, the NNPC’s Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO), made this announcement on Monday during a session at the National Assembly, where economic stakeholders appeared before the Senate Committee on Finance, led by lawmaker Sani Musa.
Kyari stated that the operationalisation of the refinery is a significant step towards making Nigeria a net exporter of petroleum products by December.
He highlighted that all necessary measures have been put in place to achieve an oil production level of 2 million barrels per day (bpd) within a few months.
Kyari clarified that while the Kaduna refinery is not expected to be operational before December, both the Warri and Kaduna refineries will commence operations by the end of the year. However, the Port Harcourt refinery, he said, is set to begin production in early August.
“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.”
Earlier, Kyari had projected that the refinery would start production by the end of March, but that timeline was not met.
Chioma Kalu
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