Nigeria’s state hydrocarbon company NNPC has junked the option of selling its four crude oil refining plants, located in three states of the country.
After reviewing the report of the company-wide asset audit and portfolio benchmarking exercise, the NNPC’s incumbent, seven month old executive management and board of directors, decided it was best to get into partnership with companies who could run the facilities, while the NNPC takes a minority, but decisive seat.
The benchmarking exercise was conducted over the course of three months and submitted in September 2025.
In the last six weeks, the company, through the office of its Executive Vice President (EVP) Downstream,, has embarked on a global search for well-heeled and technically honed companies who could invest in, as well as run the refineries, with the NNPC taking a non-operating, minority stake.
The previous position, now discarded, was for the Nigerian state to fund the turn around maintenance and hand over the facilities to contracting firms to run, with NNPC having the oversight role.
Africa Oil+Gas Report learns that the negotiations have narrowed the number of likely investor/ technical partners to three, as of the week of November 3, 2025.
NNPC’s two refineries in Port Harcourt, in the east of the country, have been the main focus of the engagements with putative partners and, if it works, the proposal is to proceed to the two other refineries (the Warri Refinery in the mid-west and the Kaduna refinery in the north).
NNPC has -in the last six years- spent considerable energy on refurbishing the refineries, which have total nameplate capacity of 445,000Barrels Per Stream Day (BPSD). The facilities came on stream between 1965 and 1989, but have been largely non performing in the last 15years.
Between 2019 and mid-2023, Nigeria’s cabinet of ministers, known as the Federal Executive Council (FEC), approved a total of approximately $3Bllion for the phased rehabilitation of the four plants in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna refining complexes. But there have been significant commissioning hitches, despite the fact that the refurbishments have been lled by such bespoke contractors as Marie Technimont of Italy (Port Harcourt plants) and Daewoo Construction of Korea (Warri and Kaduna).
“With that kind of money spent, if we took the decision to sell, we would be stoned on the streets”, one ranking manager in the logistics unit declared. “It will be a massive destruction of value”.
In a recent Linked in post, NNPC’s Group CEO, Bayo Ojulari declared: “We are filled with determination! We are looking ahead with optimism to ensure our refineries operate effectively”.
NNPC sources (no one would speak on record, but this story benefits from interviews with several officials), acknowledge that the emergence of Dangote Refinery, with a name plate capacity of 650,000BPSD and (a lower limit of) gasoline output of 30Million litres a day, is a daunting competition, but Ojulari’s post declared that NNPC was continuing the work of refurbishing the refineries “to ensure NNPC’s capacity to meet the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) requirement as the supplier of last resort for petroleum products”.
The NNPCL management board had shown pragmatic and technical experience in selecting or working with investors/technical partners.
It will be very hard if not impossible for local and foreign saboteous to mingle into rehabilitation and innovation of the Porthacourt Refineries
Definitely, President Bola Hamed Tinubu Renowned Hope and determination is having way for sustainability and results with cut-edge handlers.
Thank you, sir, for your thoughtful perspective. The NNPCL’s direction indeed reflects a stronger alignment between technical capability and strategic investment partnerships. As the sector continues to evolve, collaboration between credible local and international stakeholders will be essential for ensuring sustainable rehabilitation and long-term operational efficiency especially for critical assets like the Port Harcourt refineries.
I’m particularly interested in connecting with professionals who share insights on efficient project delivery, energy infrastructure development, and investor operator alignment. Your comment highlights some key areas where experienced voices can make a strong impact, and I would welcome the opportunity to continue this conversation.
You may reach me directly on 09132680621. Let’s connect and exchange views on how the industry can deepen collaboration and drive measurable results.
The eleme petrochemical model should be adopted to give nigeria sense of belonging or 30% of it should go to NGX for Nigerian public.
Kindly sell of the 3 refineries and hands off completely.
Let the private owners operate it while you focus on implementation of policies at it applies to the PIA.
See what NCDMB is doing and copy that.
Any slight interference and control from you guys will ruin any gains made by partial privatization.
The Nigerian factor is a big problem
I align with your thoughts.
Experience has shown that any government intervention in such enterprises would eventually be counterproductive.
I would also advocate total privatisation.
Moreover, private owners would write it more efficiently and plug leakages.
NNPCL, stop wasting our time and resources on obsolete refineries.
The best thing you can do is hand over the refineries to the original builders.
They can inspect them and provide quotes to buy the refineries ‘as they are.’
NNPCL should forget about operating the refineries.
The new owners should sell 25% of shares to Nigerians.
Enough of turn-around maintenance with zero outcome.
Corruption, sectionalism and collusion with imperialists would not allow nnpc manage any business effectively for the country’s interest. Shame.
This is a leap from the usual “we own” mentality that has not brought about a substantial improvement in the outputs of the four refineries over the years.
Kudos to the NNPC Management.
Love to see this through – that’s how the oil/gas sector rolls: strategic collaboration.
Thanks.
It is very irresponsible to sell Govt. asset, and a shame people actually think it is a good idea to sell.
The government is responsible for controlling the quality of life that the people live, and you cannot do this as a government if you do not have a stake in things that control the quality of life that the people live.
If you do not have a stake, you cannot tell a business how to run their business. They will give you a thousand and one reason why the policy will not work or why the business cannot be run like that. Too many examples of this:
– MTN refusing to charge per second because it is not feasible until GLO came and changed that.
– What about Govt.’s struggle with power both in terms of charge and availability
– DSTV is refusing to charge people according to what they watch, subscribe whether you watch or not it expires.
If you don’t have a stake, you cannot influence the business enough to have the impact that you want.
Refinery has impact on transportation which has impact on the prices of goods. By all means, government should be interested in having significant stake whether they are the one running it or not.
Owning and having someone else run it and give you return is far better than selling outright.
You can always change who is running it if they refuse to implement what you want as the owner. You just simply find another person who is ready to innovate and give you what you want.
Worse, most times they will sell it to themselves, the same thing they claim is not working.
The key point here is that government should always own a stake in any business that significantly affects the economy. It is not the same thing as private individual business whether owned by Nigerians or foreigners.
If the government needs advice, they should reach out.
Take off your hands NNPC and Stop this corrupt turn around maintenance stuff for the Boys. Let the investors do turn around maintenance by theirselves.