NNPCL mulls sale of Port Harcourt, Warri, Kaduna refineries after $18bn repairs fizzle

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) is considering selling the Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna refineries due to the complexity and expense of revamping these facilities.

NNPCL’s Group Chief Executive Officer, Bayo Ojulari, the company has invested heavily in the refineries without seeing tangible results.

Ojulari spoke in an interview with Bloomberg on Thursday at the 9th OPEC International Seminar in Vienna, Austria, saying that the country had invested heavily in the refineries without seeing any tangible results.

According to him, “A strategic review of NNPCL’s refinery operations is underway and expected to be concluded before the end of the year.

“We’re reviewing all our refinery strategies now. We hope before the end of the year, we’ll be able to conclude that review. That review may lead to us doing things slightly differently,” he added.

Ojulari attributed some of the setbacks to outdated infrastructure and underperforming technologies.

He further said, “On refineries, we made quite a lot of investment over the last several years and brought in a lot of technologies, but we’ve been challenged.

“Some of those technologies have not worked as we expected so far. But also, as you know, when you’re refining a very old refinery that has been abandoned for some time, what we’re finding is that it’s becoming a little bit more complicated,” he added.

The Port Harcourt refinery briefly resumed operations in November 2024 but was shut down again in May 2025 for maintenance.

The Warri and Kaduna refineries are still undergoing rehabilitation.

Aliko Dangote, CEO of the Dangote Group, has expressed pessimism about the functionality of the state-owned refineries, citing $18 billion spent on them without success.