The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) has announced plans to collaborate with a Chinese firm to refurbish the country’s non-operational oil refineries.
According to NNPC Chief Executive Bayo Ojulari, the company is exploring partnerships with experienced refinery operators to improve efficiency, preferring equity-sharing arrangements over outright sales to sustainably manage and modernize the facilities.
“I’m just coming from a meeting with one of the potential investors,” Ojulari said, without disclosing the company’s name.
“They are going to the refinery tomorrow to inspect. It’s a Chinese company that has one of the biggest petrochemical plants in China.”
Ojulari explained that operations at the refineries have been put on hold to allow time for evaluating restoration solutions. The pause coincides with the opening of the Dangote Refinery, which has provided “breathing space” for the supply of domestic petroleum.
According to him, NNPC would give partners a share of its equity rather than selling the refineries so that the facilities could finance themselves.
In November, however, Olu Verheijen, Special Adviser to the President on Energy, noted that selling the refineries is also “one of the options” under consideration.
For the past two years, NNPC has struggled to fully reactivate its three main oil refineries in Warri, Kaduna, and Port Harcourt, efforts that have faced public scrutiny and prompted strategic shifts. The company’s three refineries have a combined processing capacity of 445,000 barrels per day but have remained idle for decades, forcing Nigeria to rely heavily on imported fuel and, more recently, on the Dangote refinery.
Despite significant investments aimed at modernization, the refineries’ long-standing underperformance has highlighted challenges in rehabilitation, financial management, and operational oversight. To address this, NNPC announced in October 2025 that it was seeking technical private equity partners to facilitate the revival of its dormant facilities.
Ojulari emphasised that the strategy focuses on bringing in refinery operators with proven experience rather than contractors, signaling a shift from previous approaches that failed to restore operations effectively.
The government’s initial attempt to rehabilitate the refineries came in response to the commissioning of Dangote’s 650,000-barrel-per-day refinery, but the effort proved unsuccessful, leading to the current exploration of public-private partnerships as a long-term solution.
