Timothy Mgbere, the Secretary of the Alesa community stakeholders, has 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.
“They went there because the storage facility for the old refinery had some stock— old stock that has been there for over three years.
“And so what they had, they released that stock, and then loaded six trucks and then televised it to Nigerians that it is the production from the old refinery. That’s not true.
“The product was not a new refined product from the old refinery,” he stated.
Media Talk Africa recalls that on Tuesday, NNPCL announced the commencement of petroleum product production at the Port Harcourt Refinery.
Consequently, it announced that it has begun trucking out petroleum products.
On Tuesday, Sunday Dare, a presidential spokesperson, said about 200 trucks were ready to load Port Harcourt Refinery’s petroleum products.
