The Port Harcourt Refinery has explained that to make upgrades at the facility, its operations were scaled down rather than entirely stopped.
It made this announcement on Sunday after the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria demanded that if the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited sold fuel from the Port Harcourt refinery at a high price, it would not purchase from it.
According to oil dealers, NNPCL was selling gasoline at N1,030 per litre from the plant. This is almost N60 more expensive than the Dangote Petroleum Refinery’s petrol.
NNPCL did not disclose the price of petrol produced from the recently restored Port Harcourt refinery despite rejecting the assertion.
The plant was operating, according to Moyi Maidunama, Executive Director of Operations, Nigerian Pipeline and Storage Company Limited, who was leading a guided tour of the Port Harcourt refinery with Managing Director Ibrahim Onoja.
While acknowledging that there was a brief hiccup in operations, Maidunama told reporters that the cutback was required to resolve technical problems and improve capacity.
He reassured everyone that product distribution was still going on, adding that the process would go on unhindered and that multiple trucks were loading refined products.
