The Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria has appealed to the federal government to sell the Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna refineries run by Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited.

The National President of PETROAN, Billy Gillis-Harry, made th request in a recent statement.

According to him, the plants would become productive if they were privatized rather than waiting for the country to resource their rehabilitation.

He decried that despite spending billions of naira on the rehabilitation of the four refineries, there has been little or no output.

PETROAN Urges Federal Government to Privatize NNPCL’s Four State-Owned Refineries by Q1 2026

The Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN) has intensified its campaign for the privatization of Nigeria’s four state-owned refineries managed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), calling for the process to be transparently completed by the first quarter of 2026.

In a statement released, PETROAN’s National President, Billy Gillis-Harry, described years of heavy public investment in the refineries as a persistent failure that has yielded little to no commercial output.

He argued that continued government ownership is creating unnecessary fiscal waste and hindering progress in the downstream petroleum sector.
“Sustained public funding of the refineries has failed to deliver optimal results over the years, making private sector-led management inevitable if the country is to achieve energy security and stability in the downstream petroleum sector,” Gillis-Harry stated.

This comes amid ongoing debate over the future of the state-owned refineries.

The Group Chief Executive of NNPCL, Bayo Ojulari, had stated that the privatization of the state-owned refineries is not off the table after a successful review of the facilities.