Nigerian President Bola Tinubu said on Thursday that the country’s state-owned refineries would return to operation as part of a broader economic restructuring, while pledging to expand a compressed natural gas initiative meant to lower transport costs.
Speaking at the State House in Abuja as he received leaders of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Tinubu said the government was pursuing a structural overhaul of the refineries rather than a quick fix, and that output alone would not signal success. Producing fuel without profitability would not fulfil the purpose for which the plants were built, he said.
Tinubu said his administration had taken ownership of the refinery problem regardless of its origins under previous governments, and pledged to see the process through.
On the Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiative, Tinubu said the government intended to expand the programme to cut transport costs and strengthen energy security, but said savings were not yet reaching ordinary commuters. He said benefits from CNG adoption were concentrated among truck owners and urged transport operators to pass savings on to passengers.
NUPENG President Salimon Akanni Oladiti welcomed government efforts to revive the Warri and Port Harcourt refineries through partnerships with Chinese firms, and called for similar investment in the Nigerian Pipelines and Storage Company’s ageing depot network, suggesting they be handed to private investors under equity arrangements. He also urged Tinubu to press state governments to comply with a Supreme Court ruling affirming financial autonomy for local governments.
The union subsequently named Tinubu a Grand Patron in recognition of his engagement with the sector.
The remarks follow a series of moves by Tinubu’s government this year to revamp Nigeria’s downstream oil sector, including a memorandum of understanding between state oil firm NNPC and Chinese companies to rehabilitate refining capacity, alongside efforts to expand clean cooking access and gas utilisation nationwide.
