Why NNPC Refineries Will Never Work Again — Obasanjo
By Olumuyiwa Olumuyiwa
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has listed reasons why the Port-Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries now being managed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) will never work no matter the amount of money earmarked for their operations.
Obasanjo stated that the facilities will only be active and productive if the federal government embraces public-private partnership (PPP) stressing that only projects with considerable involvement of the private sector in the country have stood the test of time.
The ex-president spoke while featuring on “Sony Irabor Live”, aired on television on Saturday night.
The octogenarian noted that his stance was informed by what experts in oil and gas sector told him while he was in office and desperately trying to revive the facilities to boost the country’s economy.
He said, “One of the lessons that I learnt is that PPP (public-private partnership) works. Look, one project that has not been destroyed by the government in Nigeria is the NLNG (Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas), where the private sector has 51 per cent, and the Nigerian government has 49 per cent.
“See what we did with Nigerian railways. See what we did with the national shipping company. See what we are doing now, even with the NNPC. The NNPC has refineries, and I said to people that it will never work. And a man had the audacity to say, ‘Am I a chemical engineer?”
Obasanjo spoke about his failed efforts to woo Shell, a global energy firm, into running the refineries. “Look, when I was there, I called Shell. I said, ‘Look, please, I beg you, come and take 10 per cent equity and run the refinery for us.’ They said no. I said, ‘Okay, if you don’t want to take equity, don’t take equity. Come and run the refineries. They said no,” he stated.
The former president narrated how he invited a top official of Shell for a one-on-one conversation to know why his offers were turned down.
“So, I called him, and I said, ‘Tell me, be honest with me. Why don’t you want to handle this?’ He said first, they want to let me know that they make most of their profits on the upstream, not the downstream.
“He said they run their downstream without making a loss, but they don’t make a lot of profit from it. It’s more of a service than a major profit-making. So that’s number one.”
“Number two: he said our refineries are too small. This was when I was an elected President. He said our refineries are too small. One is 60,000 barrels, and another is 100,000 barrels. He said refineries at that time were in the range of 250,000 barrels to 300,000 barrels. Number three: he said our refineries are not well-maintained. We call quacks and amateurs to come and maintain our refineries. The refineries are not in good order. He said, ‘Number four, there’s too much corruption around our refineries, and they don’t want to be part of that,” Obansanjo explained.
The former Nigeria’s helmsman remarks came on the heels of the frustration expressed by the NNPC boss, Bayo Ojulari who stated that the government controlled refineries were operating “well below international standards”, making their products commercially uncompetitive, especially compared to the privately owned Dangote refinery.
Ojulari made this statement after the rehabilitation of the facilities which had guzzled millions of dollars since the inception of the current administration.
Meanwhile, the NNPC has refused to back down from running a government-owned refineries, in November 2025 announced a fresh target of June 2026 to finalise the selection of technical partners for the facilities.
