Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) on Monday set a new August 2024 date for the old Port Harcourt Refinery to begin production.
It also said the new Port Harcourt refinery and the Warry refinery would follow suit, adding that the one in Kaduna would be on stream by December of the year.
The Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the oil company, Mr Mele Kyari, stated this in Abuja at an emergency session on the state of the economy with the Joint Senate and House of Representatives Committees on Finance
Both Kyari and the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Sen. Heineken Lokpobiri, also told the lawmakers that the country was close to achieving the target of 2 million barrels of crude oil production daily.
Kyari, who insisted that Nigeria would be “a net exporter” of petrol by the end of the year, especially with the coming onstream of Dangote Refinery, blamed the inability to meet the earlier dates set for the Port Harcourt refinery on unforeseen challenges common with the “technical completion” of rehabilitation processes.
He said, “Let me explain this very clearly. We did have mechanical completion of the Port Harcourt refinery, which means that every technical work that is required to get the refinery on to work has been completed. This is what we announced December last year, if you recall.
