Fakoyejo Olalekan
As uncertainty surrounds the commencement of operation at Dangote Refinery, President Bola Tinubu has turned his sight to Port Harcourt Refinery.
Recall that Aliko Dangote, the founder of Dangote Refinery, had stated that the refiner will begin production by the end of July or the beginning of August.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelHowever, the President of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Festus Osifo, on Wednesday disclosed that the probability of the Dangote refinery commencing operation in the third quarter of 2023 is low.
“As of now, they may have their own mechanism, because it is 80 percent privately owned that we may not know. But from our external view, we don’t think that it will come into even up to 50 percent production before the end of the year,” he said during an interview with Channels TV.
Osifo added that: “You need crude to be doing some of the pre-commissioning stages. As of today, that has not quite commenced, but for the Dangote refinery, we are not quite sure whether it will come up between now and the end of the year.
“From our findings, we pray every day, we push, and we hope that the Dangote refinery should actually come on stream because we learnt that they have not started the full pre-commissioning using crude. For you to be able to know fully when the refinery will come on stream, you may have done a lot of simulations.”
Another promise set to fail?
With doubts rising regarding Dangote Refinery’s operation, Tinubu has promised the labour unions; TUC and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), that the Port Harcourt Refinery will commence operation by December 2023.
Tinubu made the promise to persuade the labour unions from extending their fuel subsidy protest which began on Wednesday.
However, this is not the first time the government will promise that the Port Harcourt Refinery will commence operation at a certain date but failed to start production.
The former minister of state for petroleum resources, Timipre Sylva, declared in September 2022 that the Port Harcourt Refinery will kick off last year.
Also, Sylva made another projection in March 2023 that the Port Harcourt Refinery will start refining crude in the second quarter of this year, but that didn’t occur.
The failure of Port Harcourt Refinery commencing production at every scheduled month comes after $1.5 billion was approved for its rehabilitation, which commenced in 2021.
Similarly, the commencement of Dangote Refinery has also been postponed on multiple occasions, as the refinery was initially scheduled to start production in 2016. then moved to 2019, then 2020, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was postponed to 2022.
