The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) is under renewed fire from petroleum marketers and northern civil groups over stalled rehabilitation works at the Port Harcourt refinery and broader failures in reviving the country’s moribund refining sector.

The Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN) accused NNPCL’s Group Chief Executive Officer, Bayo Ojulari, of failing to prioritise the Port Harcourt facility, which has been idle since a scheduled 30-day repair shutdown on May 24, 2025. PETROAN’s Eastern Zone chairman, Sunny Nkpe, who visited the site last weekend, described the pace of work as “alarmingly slow” and alleged that contractors were owed over 12 months in payments.

Nkpe claimed the refinery was close to resuming production before the leadership change at NNPCL, warning that prolonged downtime was benefiting private refiners at the expense of consumers, with tanker drivers and marketers left out of work. He urged President Bola Tinubu to intervene, arguing that reviving the refinery would stabilise fuel prices across Aba, Enugu, Makurdi and other cities.

Meanwhile, two northern groups, the Arewa Community for Empowerment and Development and the Arewa Consultative Youth Movement have taken NNPCL’s Chief Financial Officer, Dapo Segun, to the Federal High Court in Kaduna. They allege his supervisory role in both the stalled refinery projects and NNPCL’s controversial acquisition of OVH Energy wasted billions without delivering results, and they are calling for his dismissal, arrest, and prosecution.

Nigeria’s refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna have been largely idle for years despite multi-billion-dollar rehabilitation contracts. The government continues to rely heavily on imported petroleum products, even after NNPCL’s $1.5bn Port Harcourt rehabilitation announcement in 2021 and its expansion into retail operations through the OVH Energy deal in 2022.

Efforts to get an official NNPCL response have so far been unsuccessful.