The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) is considering selling off some of its long-dormant refineries following years of unsuccessful rehabilitation efforts and mounting skepticism from top industry leaders.
Speaking at the 9th OPEC International Seminar in Vienna, Austria, the Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPC Ltd, Bayo Ojulari, said the company is conducting a strategic review of its refinery operations, which could lead to their eventual sale.
“We’re reviewing all our refinery strategies now. We hope before the end of the year, we’ll be able to conclude that review. Sale is not out of the question… all options are on the table”, ,” Ojulari told Bloomberg on Thursday
Nigeria’s state-owned refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna have faced decades of neglect, failed maintenance efforts, and recurring shutdowns.
Although the Port Harcourt refinery briefly resumed operations in late 2023, it was shut down again in May 2025 for further maintenance.
Ojulari attributed the setbacks to outdated infrastructure and the challenges of revamping decades-old plants adding, “Some of those technologies have not worked as we expected… it’s becoming a little bit more complicated.”
These remarks come amid renewed criticism of the state-owned refineries by prominent businessman Alhaji Aliko Dangote, who expressed deep skepticism about their viability.
Dangote, whose 650,000-barrel-per-day Dangote Refinery is nearing full operation, said he doubts if the government-owned refineries will ever function again despite swallowing over $18 billion in public funds.
“We bought the refineries in January 2007. Then we had to return them to the government because there was a change of government,” Dangote said while hosting members of Global CEO Africa from the Lagos Business School at his Lekki facility.
“They have spent about $18bn on those refineries, and they are still not working. I doubt very much if they will work,” he said, likening the attempt to modernize them to “trying to modernise a car that was built 40 years ago.”
The refineries, which the Dangote Group once acquired under President Olusegun Obasanjo, were returned following a reversal by the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
Dangote explained that the NNPC’s then-management had misled the president into believing they could rehabilitate the facilities internally.
Former President Obasanjo had previously echoed similar sentiments, stating that international oil companies like Shell declined to manage the refineries due to their dire state.
Obasanjo described the NNPC’s handling of the assets as a “national embarrassment,” saying, “Those refineries, from what I heard and know, will not work, and when you want to sell them, you will not get anybody to buy them at $200 million as scrap.”
He added that the refusal to privatise the refineries was fueled by corruption and mismanagement adding, “NNPC knew they could not do it… When people were there to do it, they put pressure. In a civilised society, those people should be in jail.”
Industry groups have also called for divestment. The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria described the refineries as a drain on the economy, and several crude refiners have urged the government to sell them off as scrap and redirect funds toward supporting modular refineries.
Despite over $2 billion spent on the facilities since 2021, including $1.4bn for Port Harcourt, $897m for Warri, and $586m for Kaduna, the plants remain largely unproductive.
In 2021 alone, N100bn was spent on refinery rehabilitation, with a reported N8.33bn spent monthly, and $396.33m expended on turnaround maintenance between 2013 and 2017.
Ojulari also acknowledged the high operating cost of crude oil production in Nigeria, currently hovering between $25 and $30 per barrel, due in part to heavy investments in pipeline security. Still, he expressed hope that with improved stability, costs would reduce.
Meanwhile, the NNPC is targeting an increase in national oil production to 1.9 million barrels per day by the end of 2025, even as public confidence in its refinery management continues to decline.
Attempts to get official comments from NNPC proved abortive, as the company has no active spokesperson at the moment, and calls and messages to its public contact lines went unanswered.
With both market players and political elders casting doubt on the future of the refineries, calls for decisive action, including outright sale or full privatization, are growing louder.
