The Port Harcourt Refinery Company (PHRC), which began operations some days ago has suffered a major technical setback leading to the scaling down of operations, as clarified by a top official of the company.
Clarifying reports alleging that the operations of the Port Harcourt Refining were halted, the executive director of operations, Nigerian Pipeline and Storage Company Limited, Moyi Maidunama, who spoke during a tour of the refinery, explained that operations were scaled down to address the technical issues in the facility.
He revealed that the company has the situation under control and assured of a speedy resumption of operations in the refinery.
The executive director said, “The operations were not halted. It was obviously reduced due to some improvements that we needed to make. We are managing the process with the number of trucks available today, using a few loading arms for evacuation. This should be resolved soon.”
The terminal operations manager of Port Harcourt depot, Joel Molokwu, in a statement made available to Investors King disclosed that the refinery’s loading arms are operational and capable of loading over 100 trucks in less than hours.
Speaking on the reason why oil marketers have not lifted the product, he said: “We have our loading arms operational and we have been begging them (petroleum marketers) to come in since yesterday but because today is weekend that is why they have not turned up. If you give us 100 trucks today, we will evacuate them in less than five hours.
Molokwu added: “So, it is not our problem if there are no loading trucks, it is the tanker drivers’ problem. We have been begging them since yesterday to come around and take the products but they didn’t turn up. It was just this morning after pleading with them that they came.”
Molokwu denied reports alleging that the refinery was not operational saying, “This is PPMC loading arm. We have 11 loading bays that are functional, but because it has a huge capacity to deliver, we are using three at the moment.
Explaining further, he stated: “Out of the three loading bays, each has the capacity of loading three trucks in 15 minutes. A truck is 45, 000 litres minimum. We have the ones of 60, 000 litres. Already, we have loaded more than ten trucks. So, before the close of work today (Sunday), just in the next one hour, we are going to evacuate minimum of 15 trucks.”
Molokwu concluded that the refinery has ‘surplus products’ in stock and urged oil marketers to approach the facility for quality petroleum products.
This development comes days after Timothy Mgbere, identifying himself as the secretary of the Alesa Community Stakeholders, accused the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) of misleading Nigerians regarding the functionality of the Port Harcourt Refinery.
The community leader alleged that the refinery only loaded six trucks of petroleum products on the inauguration day contrary to the NNPC’s claim that 200 trucks would be picked up from the refinery daily.
In a swift reaction on Friday, November 29, NNPC’s Chief Corporate Communications Officer, Olufemi Soneye, dismissed Mgbere’s allegations as baseless and unfounded.
Soneye described Mgbere’s assertions as a “crass display of ignorance,” stating that the company felt compelled to respond to set the record straight and avoid misleading the public.
