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By, Onome Jackson.
Barely 24 hours after resumption of activities at the Port Harcourt Refining Company on Tuesday, shocking tales of the whole arrangements as a scam, orchestrated shenanigan to white wash is spreading !
There are claims that there is no activity on site, that some workers there claimed that the refinery was undergoing calibration which might last weeks.
YOUNEWS learnt that, For now, most workers and drivers appeared idle as no machinery is operational.
The Port Harcourt Refinery has faced numerous delays and missed deadlines to resume operations.
However, the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited, Melee Kyari, inaugurated the new plant at the Area 5 terminal of the refinery on Tuesday. It was claimed that 200 petrol trucks were loading daily from the plant.
Calling the celebration of the refinery a big fraud, sources are saying, the Port Harcourt refinery DID NOT produce new fuel..but old fuel ( 3 years old )..and the fuel were taken out in 6( not 200) trucks!
That the place was only refurbished and linked to a loading bay!
Prince Emmy Johnson, a key chief in the community where the refinery is situated granted an interview debunking everything, also spilled the beans, saying, the fuel they loaded was OLD stock that was in the refinery before it was shut down.
Timothy Mgbere, the Secretary of the Alesa community stakeholders, also claimed that the petroleum products loaded from the recently revived Port Harcourt Refinery were not newly refined but petrol products left in the storage tank of the facility in the last three years.
Mgbere disclosed this during his appearance as a guest on Arise TV on Thursday, noting that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited told Nigerians many lies about the revived refinery.
He also alleged that the refinery only loaded six trucks on Tuesday, despite reports that 200 trucks would pick up petrol from the refinery daily.
Mgbere further dismissed NNPCL’s position that the Port Harcourt refinery operation commenced on Tuesday with 1.4 million barrels per day of crude processing.
“I will give them the credit that at least they have started something, but not to say, according to the Head of Corporate Communication of the NNPC Limited, Femi Soneye, like it is in the media that they are already producing 1.4 million barrels per day. That’s not the case. That’s not true.
“As an agency that is holding the oil industry in trust for Nigerians, they shouldn’t put out some of this information that is not true.
An insider also said “the product that was loaded was dead stock, that is the old product that was in the system. So, after these dead stocks, they will have to clean the tank, remove all the debris before pumping the new project into that tank, and redye it,” the source said.
The worker highlighted that refineries worldwide should operate electronically, not manually.
“But what they are trying to do at the Port Harcourt Refinery is manual, which cannot match the new digital pumps. Most of the pumps used for the event were refurbished,” he added.
He explained that during Kyari’s visit on Tuesday, seven trucks were prepared for loading, but only five were filled with petrol.
Spokesperson for the NNPC, Olufemi Soneye, speaking via NNPC statement denied claims by the Alesa community leader, Timothy Mgbere, that the Port Harcourt refinery was not producing fuel.
Soneye accused Mgbere of crass ignorance of how a refinery runs.
He said, “The old and new Port Harcourt refineries have since been integrated with one single terminal for product load-out. They share common utilities like power and storage tanks. This means that storage tanks and loading gantry which he claimed belongs to the new Port-Harcourt Refinery can also receive products from the Old Port Harcourt Refinery.”
He called on the public to disregard claims borne out of “sheer mischief and blatant display of ignorance.
