BARELY one month after the 60,000-capacity Port Harcourt Refinery came on stream, the facility is said to have shut down operations.
A Punch report alleged that the lifting of petrol from the refinery had stopped since last Friday, December 13, as the 18-arm loading bay of the re-streamed refinery was empty.
According to the report, about 18 trucks littered the stretch of the busy road leading to the refinery, while the loading bay was empty.
It further claimed that the depot, usually a beehive of activities where tankers scramble for space at the parking yard, was a shadow of itself with literally no vehicular or human activity relating to operations.
However, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) refuted the claims.
In a statement on Saturday, December 21, the NNPCL said the allegation of the Old Port Harcourt Refinery being shut down was false.
In the statement issued by its chief corporate communications officer, Olufemi Soneye, the NNPCL said, “We wish to clarify that such reports are totally false as the refinery is fully operational as verified a few days ago by former group managing directors of NNPC.
“Preparation for the day’s loading operation is currently ongoing.”
It urged the public to disregard the report as a figment of the imagination of those who want to create artificial scarcity and rip off Nigerians.
The Port Harcourt Refinery resumed operations on Tuesday, November 26 but not without controversies.
The ICIR reported that the management of the state-owned oil refinery has been faced with a deluge of questions arising from the re-streaming of operations from the facility.
For instance, the operational capacity of the refinery came under intense scrutiny hours after its reopening.
The scrutiny followed controversies that petroleum products loaded from the facilities were not newly refined but products stored in the storage tank of the facility in the last three years.
In a monitored interview at Arise Television, the secretary of the Alesa Community stakeholders, Timothy Mgbere, who appeared as a guest alleged that the 60,000 barrels per day had yet to become fully operational, contrary to the position of the NNPCL.
Reacting, the NNPCL said the claims were false.