The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has signed a new agreement with China Machinery Engineering Corporation in what is clearly another serious attempt to bring the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries back to life after years of failed rehabilitation efforts and repeated shutdowns.
The deal is aimed at restarting operations and expanding both refineries, which have remained unreliable despite multiple turnaround maintenance projects that have consumed billions of dollars over the years without delivering steady fuel production.
Port Harcourt Refinery, which gulped about $1.5 billion in rehabilitation funding, briefly resumed operations before going offline again in 2025. Warri Refinery has followed a similar pattern of short-lived restarts and technical setbacks, leaving both plants far from full commercial output.
NNPCL says the new partnership with the Chinese firm is focused on technical rehabilitation, operational restart and capacity improvement, as the company tries to stabilise domestic refining and reduce Nigeria’s heavy dependence on imported petroleum products.
The agreement signals a shift in approach. Instead of continuing with repeated repair contracts that have failed to deliver lasting results, NNPCL is now leaning on external technical expertise to fix deep operational and structural issues inside the refineries.
Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL, Bayo Ojulari, has acknowledged that restarting the refineries is no longer the real challenge, but sustaining operations at a commercially viable level. According to him, the company is now focused on ensuring the plants can actually run efficiently and compete in a changing downstream market.
That position reflects the reality facing Nigeria’s refining sector, where ageing infrastructure, inconsistent maintenance history and weak operational systems have kept state-owned refineries idle for most of the past decade, even after multiple rounds of investment.
With the China deal, NNPCL is betting that stronger engineering support and operational discipline will finally change the story of Port Harcourt and Warri refineries from expensive assets on paper to functioning plants in reality.