Port Harcourt refinery to start production in January, Minister assures

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, on Sunday said that the Port Harcourt refinery will start production in the next one week.

The Minister made the statement during his Christmas visit to the plant in Alesa Eleme in Rivers State on Friday.

He was there to oversee the repair work done so far and hinted that the refinery would be back to production in the next one week.

The Port Harcourt refinery has a combined production capacity of over five million litres of PMS per day and the Minister said that getting the nation’s refineries to work at full capacity is the way to go.

According to Mr Kachikwu, the up-scaling of the nation’s refineries ensures transparency and subsequent reduction in the importation of petroleum products that would make scarcity remain in the past.

It was announced earlier in November that the Kaduna Refinery and Petrochemical Company had also resumed production of petrol four months after it was closed for repairs.

The Managing Director of the company, Saidu Mohammed, told that the plant, which was closed in September, came back on stream ahead of the December deadline for Nigeria’s four refineries to return to full production.