The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited has dismissed claims that it loaded old stock of petroleum products from the rehabilitated Old Port Harcourt Refinery.
This follows allegations by Timothy Mgbere, Secretary of the Alesa Community Stakeholders, who described the recent re-streaming of the refinery and the truck loading of petrol as false.
In a statement issued on Friday by NNPC spokesperson Femi Soneye, the company described Mgbere’s assertions as a “crass display of ignorance” typical of someone self-identifying as a “community person.”
“He alleged that the Old Port Harcourt Refinery was operating at skeletal capacity and not processing PMS. His supposed evidence was that PMS was being trucked out from the gantry of the New Port Harcourt Refinery rather than the gantry of the Old Port Harcourt Refinery. This demonstrates his limited understanding of refinery operations,” the statement read.
“The Old and New Port Harcourt Refineries are integrated and share a single terminal for product loading. They also share utilities such as power and storage tanks.
“This integration means that the storage tanks and loading gantry associated with the New Port Harcourt Refinery can also be used for products from the Old Port Harcourt Refinery.”
NNPC also highlighted inconsistencies in Mgbere’s claims, noting that he contradicted himself by stating that the PMS being trucked out was “old stock” from the Old Port Harcourt Refinery while simultaneously asserting that the Old Refinery had its own separate gantry.
“By his flawed logic, ‘old stock’ PMS could be moved from the Old Refinery to the New Refinery’s gantry, but newly produced PMS from the Old Refinery could not. This is ignorance at its peak,” the statement continued.
The NNPC further addressed what it called “wild claims,” including Mgbere’s assertion that the refinery was producing 1.4 million barrels of oil per day.
“The nameplate capacity of the Old Port Harcourt Refinery is 60,000 barrels per day. Currently, it is operating at 90% throughput, which translates to the production of straight-run gasoline (naphtha) blended into 1.4 million litres of petrol daily, alongside other products such as diesel and kerosene,” the company clarified.
NNPC urged the public to disregard Mgbere’s allegations, labelling them as “mischievous and rooted in ignorance.”
