Is Port Harcourt Refinery back on full production? [Fact check]

On Thursday, the social and conventional media were awash that Port Harcourt Refinery has resumed production in line with President Bola Ahmed Renewed Hope Agenda. This news triggered admiration and hope raising across the country.

Even though, the contract for rehabilitation and recalibration was awarded by the immediate past government of Muhammadu Buhari, the 210,000 bpd capacity Port Harcourt Refinery would have been a yuletide gift to Nigerians, if it it was actually back for full production. Unfortunately, this claim was one of those propaganda by the government apologists.

In fact checking the claim, the claim was half truth and in simple term, “the refinery was not back for full production yet. Actually, “a promise made is a promise kept”, claim was yet to be kept.

This is however, corroborated by channelstv following a line by line analysis which pointed out that, it’s not yet time to celebrate. Listened to an expert who was featured on the platform on Friday, he said: “The Port Harcourt Refinery is two refineries in one. The first is a 60,000 bpd capacity refining plant and the other is a 150,000 bpd capacity refining plant.

“Both contracts were awarded under Engineering, Procurement, and Construction on the one hand and installation and commissioning on the other.

“So far, only the 60,000 bpd capacity plant has started functioning. Overall they termed the completion as mechanical which means the refinery is yet to be ready to commence full operations.”

Understandably, the flare was only tested, but the plant is yet to be commissioned. What is currently ongoing for the first plant are pre-commissioning activities, while the second plant is at a lower percentage completion stage.

The whole idea is just to give Nigerians a feeling that they have kept to their promise of a December deadline to keep the plant running and leave the populace in ecstasy.

This vain hype was further indemnified in a statement by the Spokesman for the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation Limited, Femi Soneye which was made available to journalists on Thursday.

In a statement titled: “NNPC Ltd delivers on promise as Port Harcourt Refinery flare start-up at Area 5 Plant”, he claimed that the NNPC Ltd has fulfilled its promise of completing the mechanical rehabilitation work on Area 5 Plant of the Port Harcourt Refining Company.

This is however distant from the position of the Group Chief Executive Officer, GCEO, during the inspection on Thursday, saying: “4% of Area 5 Plant, a key component of the Refinery and 77.4% of the entire rehabilitation project have been completed.”

The GCEO did not disclose in the contractual agreement with Messrs EPCIC Contractors, the company handling the rehabilitation whether the plant would undergo test running for a number of weeks or months before declaring it fit to resume operations after shut down for few years.

Nigerians must fact check reports by government agents before believing it hook line and sinker.