Port Harcourt Refinery Ready but Profitability Delays Restart — Osifo

A labour leader has revealed that the Port Harcourt Refinery is technically fit to resume operations, but commercial considerations are holding back its restart.

According to him, while the facility can be switched on immediately, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) is weighing profitability before taking a final decision.

“As it stands today, the old Port Harcourt refinery can be started and it will run. You can turn it on today and it will function. But NNPCL is a profit-driven company. If they decide to start it now, within one week, the refinery can be brought back to life,” Osifo stated.

He explained that despite extensive rehabilitation work, the refinery could still operate at a loss due to the high cost of crude oil compared to the market value of refined petroleum products.

“The rehabilitation is about 90 per cent complete. However, the issue is that if you feed crude oil worth about five million dollars into the old Port Harcourt refinery, the refined products you sell may only be worth around 4.5 million dollars. That means spending five million dollars and recovering less at the end,” he said.

Osifo, however, dismissed claims that funds spent on rehabilitating the refinery were wasted, noting that critical infrastructure had been replaced during the overhaul.

“The money invested in the Port Harcourt refinery is not a loss. Almost all the compressors were replaced, the control rooms were upgraded, and the panels were changed. These installations are still there; the contractors did not remove them,” he explained.

He added that the refinery’s overall worth has improved significantly following the rehabilitation exercise.

“If you assess the value of the refinery today, it is far higher than what it was before the rehabilitation,” Osifo said.

The Port Harcourt Refining Company was briefly reopened in November 2024 after the rehabilitation project but was shut down again in May 2025 due to operational difficulties. Operations at the refinery remain suspended as of now.