…Warn against sabotage, oil monopoly
Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — The host communities of the Port Harcourt Refinery, Eleme and Okrika in Rivers State, have called on the National Assembly to launch an urgent investigation into the 30-day maintenance shutdown of the refinery by NNPC Limited, warning that any attempt to monopolize Nigeria’s crude oil refining space will be fiercely resisted.
At a press briefing in Port Harcourt, the Host Community Bulk Petroleum Retailers of Port Harcourt Refinery, expressed fears that the shutdown may be a calculated move to derail President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s refinery reform agenda and hand over the petroleum industry to private monopolies.
Chief Sunny Nkpe, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Host Community Bulk Petroleum Retailers of Port Harcourt Refinery, accused Bayo Aderenle, Coordinator of the Port Harcourt refinery, of frustrating the revamp process and driving away foreign contractors.
“This shutdown is suspicious. We are calling on the National Assembly to urgently investigate what is happening at the Port Harcourt Refinery. The crude supply was halted. There’s no buffer stock in place. That is not routine maintenance, it’s sabotage,” Nkpe said.
The Board of Trustees, BOT, chairman, who is a former Rivers State Chairman of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, expressed concern that the shutdown may not be temporary as officially stated, but part of a larger plot to create a monopoly in crude oil refining.
“Universal Oil Products, UOP, an American firm contracted to revamp the Catalytic Reforming Unit, CRU, of the refinery, has pulled out from the project due to interference from the refinery’s current coordinator, Bayo Aderenle. The plant has gone cold, and people are pretending it’s normal,” he stated.
According to Nkpe, the government’s 30-day timeline must be treated as a strict deadline, not a flexible target. “If the shutdown exceeds 30 days, the economic consequences will be dire; diesel, kerosene, petrol will hit unbearable prices,” he warned.
Supporting the call for legislative oversight, Dr. Joseph Obele, Administrative Secretary of the BOT, urged lawmakers to “rise above politics and act in the national interest.”
“This refinery has moderated fuel prices in Nigeria for decades. It’s not perfect, but it plays a stabilizing role. This shutdown is an orchestrated strategy to sideline public refineries in favour of a private refinery. We can’t let that happen.
“If this continues, Nigerians may soon pay as much as N2,000 per litre of petrol,” he said.
Comrade Emmanuel Inimgba, Secretary of the BOT, issued a stern warning to political actors. “This is a matter of national interest. Eleme and Okrika will not sit idly while vested interests crush our economy and strip our people of opportunities. We’re stakeholders, not spectators.”
The group urged the Federal Government to immediately appoint a substantive Managing Director with proven refinery expertise and reinstate a transparent crude oil supply mechanism.
They also passed a vote of confidence on Tecnimont, the Italian engineering firm currently handling the refinery’s rehabilitation, urging the government to ensure the firm is adequately funded and allowed to complete work on Areas 1, 2, and 3 of the refinery.
“We’ve seen their progress. They’ve handed over Area 5, and were close to completing others before the shutdown. Sabotaging this work now is unacceptable,” said Host Community Bulk Petroleum Retailers of Port Harcourt Refinery.
The host communities also commended the sacked Managing Director of the PHRC Ibrahim Onoja, as well as Mr. Hubb Stockman, Managing Director of NNPC Retail Limited, for their community engagement and transparency. “These are people who understand what stakeholder engagement means. We ask others in the system to emulate them,” Nkpe added.
The association warned that failure to meet the 30-day timeline or provide clarity through legislative channels could spark serious backlash from the communities and petroleum marketers.
“We are not opposed to maintenance. We’re opposed to deceit, economic manipulation, and elite capture of our nation’s energy backbone,” Nkpe concluded.
