The Nigerian presidency has announced plans to fully privatize the country’s state-owned refineries.
According to Sunday Dare, the special adviser to President Bola Tinubu on media and public communications, the full privatization of Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna refineries is currently underway.
The development, he said is part of the administration’s efforts to reform the oil sector and ensure local refining capacity meets domestic demand.
“Full privatisation of Port Harcourt, Warri, Kaduna refining in the works. Local oil refining and production to peak steadily with Dangote and modular refineries active. With full local refining capacity gradually being met, days of fuel queues to end,” a reform tracker posted by Dare on social media revealed.
Nigeria’s four major refineries, located in Port Harcourt, Kaduna, and Warri, have a combined installed capacity of 445,000 barrels per day. However, despite the huge resources invested in their rehabilitation, the refineries have performed below optimal levels for decades.
The federal government has spent over N11 trillion on the rehabilitation of the refineries from 2010 to 2023, according to the House of Representatives ad-hoc committee on the state of refineries in the country. The massive expenditure has failed to yield the desired results, leaving Nigeria heavily reliant on imported petroleum products.
President Bola Tinubu’s government had, in August 2023, assured Nigerians that the Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC) would finally become functional by December after several failed attempts. The government also projected that the Warri refinery would come on stream by the end of the first quarter of 2024, with Kaduna following suit towards the end of 2024. Unfortunately, these timelines were not met.
