Tanker drivers delaying loading operations at Port Harcourt refinery — Management
The Management of Port Harcourt Refining Company of Nigeria has attributed the slow pace of loading petroleum products at the facility to tanker drivers.
According to the management, the facility is producing optimally, and there are enough products available for loading. However, the tanker drivers are delaying the loading operations.
A visit to Area 5 of the refinery on Sunday revealed that the refining of petroleum products was ongoing. A source in the facility confirmed that the refinery produces every day and has maintained its production status as disclosed earlier on Tuesday.
At the loading bay of the refinery, only three trucks were being loaded, while seven others were standing by to be loaded. Out of the 18 loading points in the facility, only three were in use.
Notably, only tankers with NNPC labels were loading and seen within the premises of the refinery. Although the facility was not bustling with life, activities were ongoing within the loading bay and the production area.
The Terminal Manager of Port Harcourt Refinery, Worlu Chike Joel, disclosed that the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC) arm of the refinery is working, and the loading of trucks has not stopped since Tuesday.
“The facility has the capacity to load 100 trucks in an hour, but currently, only 11 out of the 18 loading points are functional. Unfortunately, only three of these points are being utilized, resulting in the slow pace of loading,” Joel explained.
He attributed the underutilization of the loading points to the tanker drivers, who are delaying the loading operations. Joel assured that the facility is producing optimally and that there are enough products available for loading.
Joel said: “This is the PPMC loading arm. We have 11 loading bays that are functional, but because of the capacity, it has a huge capacity to deliver, so we are using three at the moment because it is efficient.”
“Out of the three, each one has the capacity of loading three trucks in 15 minutes. A truck is 45 thousand litres minimum. We have ones of 60 thousand litres. Already, we have loaded more than ten trucks. So before the close of work today, just in the next one hour, we are going to evacuate a minimum of 15 trucks.”
Joel said that there are enough products but that tanker drivers are not coming to load, calling on tanker drivers to come to load.
He said: “We have surplus products available. We have our loading arms operational, and we have been begging them to come in since yesterday, but because today is the weekend, that is why they have not turned up.
“If you give us 100 trucks today, we will evacuate them in less than 5 hours. So it is not our problem if there are no loading trucks, it is the tanker drivers’ problem. We have been begging them since yesterday to come around and take the products, but they didn’t turn up. It was just this morning, after pleading with them, that they came.”
The Chief Security Officer of Alesa Eleme, Dibia Isaiah, expressed joy that the facility in their community has resumed full operation.
Isaiah said: “Everybody is seeing it live and direct that production is on. I suspect it was the enemy of this rehabilitation that is going on that is peddling the rumors.
“But you can witness what is going on here. I am one of the loaders from the host community, and I have loaded 4 trucks this morning. Yesterday, I loaded too. So now we are loading, tomorrow we will load, and there is no time we will not load.
“This time is a very busy period for us. I wonder why people are giving out fake information just to run down the management. It is not good. I want to urge Nigerians to disregard such rumors.”
Meanwhile, the Managing Director of the Refinery, Ibrahim Onoja, who conducted media personnel around the facility, said the federal government and refinery have delivered, adding that production and loading have been ongoing since Tuesday.
He said: “We have delivered, and the plant is running. Trucks are running, and we are producing.”