The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited injected an estimated N13.2tn into the country’s three state-owned refineries in 2023 and 2024, largely to fund turnaround maintenance, operations, and associated bank charges.
This was even as the facilities continued to post heavy losses and failed to operate at commercially sustainable levels.
Recall that the Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPC, Bayo Ojulari, on Wednesday, publicly acknowledged that the refineries had become a major financial drain on the country, operating at what he described as a “monumental loss” to Nigeria.
Ojulari spoke in Abuja during a fireside chat titled ‘Securing Nigeria’s Energy Future’ at the Nigeria International Energy Summit 2026, where he offered rare insight into the commercial realities behind the long-troubled refining assets.
Figures from NNPC’s 2024 financial statements show that the Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna refineries together owed the national oil company about N4.52tn in 2023. The indebtedness of the plants was put at N8.67tn by the end of 2024. The summation of both figures gives about N13.2tn.
NNPC explained in the accounts that the rising balances represented the funding of refinery operations and bank charges, especially as the past GCEO, Mele Kyari, made efforts to revamp the moribund refineries.
But his successor, Ojulari, indicated that these efforts to awaken the refineries were a mere waste of resources. “The first thing that became clear, and I want to say this very clearly, is that we were running at a monumental loss to Nigeria.
