The controversy surrounding claims by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) that its Port-Harcourt refinery commenced operations has come to the fore again.
This time, the Secretary of the Alesa community stakeholders, Timothy Mgbere, stated that the petroleum products loaded from the newly rehabilitated Port-Harcourt Refinery were not freshly refined.
He stated this while appearing on AriseTV interview seen by SaharaReporters on Wednesday.
Alesa is the host community of the Port-Harcourt refinery and is under Eleme.
He noted that the products lifted are those left in the storage tank of the facility in the last three years.
According to him, the refinery only loaded six trucks on Tuesday as against the claim that it would load 200 trucks daily.
“I can tell you on authority as a community person, that what happened on Tuesday was just a mere show at the Port-Harcourt depot,
“A mere show in the sense that the Port-Harcourt refinery, we call it area five, that is the old refinery, is merely in skeletal operation,” he noted this during the programme.
Commenting on the development, Timothy Mgbere described the development as a mere show, questioning the sincerity of the NNPCL.
“I say skeletal because some units were recently brought up and they are running, not the entire units of the refinery are functional as we speak.
“It is very slow, I will give them the credit that at least they have started something but not to say that, according to the head of corporate communications for the NNPCL, they have put it on the media that they are providing 1.4 million barrels per day. That’s not the case, that’s not true.”
“As an agency holding the oil industry in trust for Nigerians, they should not put out some of this information that is not true. The true picture of what happened on TV is that the NNPC has been under pressure to televise to Nigerians that everything is okay and the old refineries have started working.
“I can tell you that the GMD or the CEO as it were now was in Port Harcourt on Monday, the other managing directors were also in Port-Harcourt.”
“The true picture is that the old Port-Harcourt refinery is built with its own utilities different from the new Port-Harcourt refinery in terms of Tank farm that is servicing the old PortHarcourt refinery has a different loading gantry at the depot.”
“The party they had on Tuesday was held at the new loading place that is directly connected to the new refinery, so how does that work?
“They went there because the storage facilities for the old refinery had some stock, old stock that has been there for over three years, so what they had, they released that stock and then loaded six trucks and then televised it to Nigerians that that is the production from the refinery, that is not true.”
“I love Nigerians to know the truth, but they do not need to believe me because Nigerians no matter how you paint the true picture to them, they will want to whip up some sentiments and all that. Let it be on record that it was only six trucks.”
SaharaReporters earlier exclusively reported that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) was not trucking out Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), popularly known as petrol, from the Port Harcourt Refinery as it claimed on Tuesday.
Top sources in the know had revealed this to SaharaReporters.
“If you hear they are trucking out PMS from the depot, know it is a lie. They bought Crack C5 from Indorama company in Port Harcourt and blended it with Naphtha to sell to the public,” the source told SaharaReporters.
The source added, “Cracked 5 is modified petroleum resins.”
“Indorama Eleme Petrochemicals Limited (IEPL) is a Group Company of Indorama Corporation, a Poly-Olefins producer based in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.”
SaharaReporters was informed that the NNPCL instead bought “Cracked C5 petroleum resins” and blended it with other products including Naphtha to sell to the Nigerian public as though the refinery processed it.
Top sources familiar with the activities of the company and the state of the refinery told SaharaReporters that the claim of trucking out PMS from the reopened refinery was a lie.
The sources had earlier said, “The plant is running but it is the old one of 60,000bpd capacity but you can’t get PMS from it except diesel. The part that produces PMS is yet to start.”
Although the NNPC limited tried to downplay the expose of SaharaReporters, it inadvertently accepted that it was blending petroleum, calling it a standard procedure and alleging witch-hunt.
THIS STORY FIRST APPEARED IN SAHARA REPORTERS
