After $1.5bn rehabilitation, the Port Harcourt refining company depot, which is usually a beehive of activities where tankers scramble for space at the parking yard, has become a shadow of itself with literally no vehicular or human activity relating to operations.
An investigation conducted by Punch on Thursday, December 19, 2024, revealed that the facility has stopped working.
It observed that the lifting of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) had stopped.
It gathered that the lifting of petrol actually stopped last Friday, December 13, as the 18-arm loading bay of the new Port Harcourt refinery was empty.
It disclosed that a handful of drivers were seen sleeping in their trucks while doing nothing.
According to the newspaper, one of them, who spoke Hausa, said he learned the lifting of PMS would resume next Monday but expressed doubt about the information.
It added that another truck driver said, “It was Friday last week they loaded last. About 15 trucks or so loaded that day. Since then, not even a single truck has been loaded till now.”
Meanwhile, a petroleum product marketer, Mr Dappa Jubobaraye, has decried the state of refineries in the country.
Jubobaraye alleged that since Kyari inaugurated the plant, no production had taken place, pointing out that everything was just a show.
It would be recalled that the inauguration of the 60,000 barrel per day production capacity plant by the Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari, on Tuesday, November 26, 2024, was met with celebration and fanfare.
This was after $1.5bn was approved in March 2021 and spent on the rehabilitation of the facility.
