Nigeria’s Port Harcourt refinery has resumed production, officials said on Tuesday, marking the first of state-owned oil firm NNPC Ltd’s four plants to return from upgrade work announced in 2020.
The 210,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery will initially produce 60,000 bpd and begin supplying petroleum products to the domestic market on Tuesday, NNPC spokesperson Femi Soneye said.
Presidency spokesperson Sunday Dare added in a post on X that “about 200 trucks are expected to load products daily from the refinery”, where upgrade work was expected to cost $1.5 billion.
State-owned refineries in Africa’s most populous country have a combined capacity of 445,000 bpd and reviving them is a priority as the government aims to curb reliance on costly imports of refined products.
The privately owned 650,000 bpd Dangote oil refinery started operations earlier this year.