The Port Harcourt Refinery and Petrochemical Company has officially resumed operations, rolling out approximately 200 trucks of petroleum products daily, marking a significant milestone after years of dormancy. The refinery had been inactive since 2019 but began operations on Tuesday following extensive renovations and modernization efforts.

The rehabilitation project began in 2021, when the Nigerian government secured a $1.5 billion contract to revitalize the facility. On the first day of production, about one million liters of refined products, including petrol, diesel, and kerosene, were scheduled to be loaded onto 42 trucks, under the supervision of Mallam Mele Kyari, Group CEO of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL), who visited the site the night before.

The Port Harcourt Refinery, located in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, has been operational since 1965 and is the largest of Nigeria’s three government-owned refineries. It has a combined refining capacity of 210,000 barrels per day, consisting of a 60,000bpd older unit and a 150,000bpd newer unit that began operations in 1989. Despite its capacity, the refinery has been underperforming for decades due to maintenance issues, leaving Nigeria reliant on importing refined petroleum products.

The ongoing rehabilitation project, which is set to be completed by 2025, is progressing in three phases. The first phase, which involved mechanical completion, was finished in December of the previous year. The modernized refinery includes several advanced units, such as crude distillation, catalytic reforming, and fluid catalytic cracking, designed to enhance its production capabilities.