The presidency has announced that 200 trucks will be loading petroleum products daily from the Port Harcourt Refinery as operations resume at the facility’s Old Wing.

Sunday Dare, Special Adviser on Public Communications and Orientation to the President, confirmed this development via his official X (formerly Twitter) handle on Tuesday. “The Port Harcourt Refinery has two Wings. The Old Refinery comes on stream today with an installed production capacity of 60,000 barrels of crude oil per day. About 200 trucks are expected to load products daily from the refinery, renewing the hopes of Nigeria,” he said.

The announcement follows a statement by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), which confirmed the refinery’s commencement of crude oil processing after years of delays.

The Federal Government had approved $1.5 billion in 2021 to rehabilitate the refinery, one of Nigeria’s largest, which was shut down in 2019. Despite being one of the world’s top oil producers, Nigeria has relied heavily on importing refined petroleum products due to insufficient local refining capacity.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s decision in 2023 to remove the long-standing fuel subsidy significantly increased the cost of petrol, heightening expectations for local refining to alleviate the pressure.