Fuel marketers have confirmed that the Port Harcourt Refining Company has continued supplying diesel to the market despite being shut down for maintenance since May 24, 2025.

The Publicity Secretary of the Petroleum Products Retail Outlet Owners Association of Nigeria, Joseph Obele, disclosed this in an interview on Tuesday, stating that marketers still load diesel daily from the Port Harcourt refinery.

The confirmation indicates that marketers have lifted an estimated 3,150 trucks of diesel over the past seven months, based on an average evacuation of about 15 trucks daily since the refinery stopped production.

Obele said marketers currently lift an average of 15 trucks of automotive gas oil every day from the facility.

The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority also confirmed the continued evacuation of diesel from the refinery in its recent report.

According to the NMDPRA, the Port Harcourt refinery, which is presently shut down, has been supplying about 349,000 litres of automotive gas oil daily into the market.

The authority disclosed that although the refinery was shut down by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited on May 24, diesel evacuation into the market continued daily as of November.

On May 24, the immediate past Chief Corporate Communications Officer of the NNPC, Olufemi Soneye, issued an official statement announcing the shutdown of the refinery for maintenance.

However, more than seven months after the shutdown announcement, the refinery has yet to resume fuel production.

While stressing that there were no production activities at the facility due to its shutdown status, the regulatory agency explained that diesel produced before the shutdown was still being evacuated.

“No production activities as the (Port Harcourt) refinery remained in shutdown mode. However, evacuation of AGO produced while the refinery was operational before 24th May 2025 continued at an average of 0.349 million litres/day,” the NMDPRA data read.

Confirming this position, Obele, who is also a fuel marketer operating in Eleme, Rivers State, said traders continued to load diesel from the refinery up to the time of the interview on Sunday.

“The Port Harcourt refinery has still been supplying diesel since May, when it was shut down. Yes, it is true. We load a minimum of 15 trucks every day,” Obele said.

The PETROAN spokesman further confirmed that the refinery has a large reservoir of diesel, noting that the plant produced significantly more diesel than petrol during the six months it was operational after reopening.

However, Obele expressed concern that the available diesel stock could be exhausted by February next year, urging the NNPC to reopen the refinery before then.

“They may run out of stock by February; hence, we are advocating that the plant should come up before then,” he added.

The shutdown of the Port Harcourt Refining Company for maintenance has now entered its seventh month, with no resumption of operations.

The PUNCH recalls that Soneye had told its correspondent on May 23 that the refinery would be shut down for only one month to carry out maintenance work.

Despite that assurance, the refinery remains inactive more than seven months later.

The Port Harcourt refinery was declared operational in November 2024 by the former Group Chief Executive Officer of the NNPC, Mele Kyari, following years of inactivity.

At the time, Kyari announced that the 60,000-barrel-per-day capacity refinery had resumed full operations.

The NNPC stated that the newly rehabilitated complex of the old Port Harcourt refinery, which had been upgraded with modern equipment, was operating at 70 per cent of its installed capacity.

It added that diesel and low-pour fuel oil would be the highest outputs from the refinery, with daily capacities of 1.5 million litres and 2.1 million litres, respectively.

The company further stated that the refinery would produce about 1.4 million litres of premium motor spirit daily through the blending of straight-run gasoline, alongside 900,000 litres of kerosene and 2.1 million litres of low-pour fuel oil.

It was also announced at the time that about 200 trucks of petrol would be released into the Nigerian market every day.

However, barely six months after the widely publicised rehabilitation completion and production restart, the refinery was shut down again.

Similarly, the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company, which Kyari declared operational in December, was shut down just one month later.

Upon assuming office, the new Group Chief Executive Officer of the NNPC, Bayo Ojulari, said he reviewed the condition of the Port Harcourt refinery and found that it was operating at a loss.

Ojulari said the refinery had been losing up to $500m monthly before rehabilitation works were suspended.

According to him, the refinery was processing less than 40 per cent of the crude oil fed into it, despite pumping about 50,000 barrels of crude.

He said, “When I resumed, one of the first priorities I focused on was the refinery. I did a quick review to see if we could quickly fix it. What I found is that we were losing between $300m and $500m on a monthly basis. The first thing we said was, ‘Rather than continue to lose, let’s quickly stop and look for a way to put this refinery into a sustainably profitable venture.”

Meanwhile, the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria has called on the Federal Government to privatise Nigeria’s four state-owned refineries.

The association urged the government to transparently conclude the privatisation process by the first quarter of 2026.

PETROAN said timely privatisation of refineries operated by the NNPC would remove recurring fiscal burdens on the government, improve efficiency, attract private capital and technical expertise, and align Nigeria’s refining sector with global best practices.

However, Ojulari has previously rejected calls for the sale of the refineries, expressing confidence that the facilities could still be revamped.

According to him, the ongoing technical and commercial review of the refineries is part of a broader strategy to reposition them as sustainable, revenue-generating assets capable of meeting Nigeria’s fuel demand and international operational standards.

Efforts to obtain further comments from the NNPC proved unsuccessful, as the company’s spokesman, Andy Odeh, did not respond to messages sent to him regarding the status of the refineries.