Bayo Ojulari, Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, has attributed the longstanding dysfunction of Nigeria’s state-owned refineries to an overemphasis on financing and contracting rather than operational management.
Speaking at the Nigerian International Energy Summit (NIES), Ojulari said decades of focusing on Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) contracts and external financing left NNPC ill-prepared to operate the refineries effectively.
“The reason our refineries have not worked is that we are focused on the first two: EPC and financing,” Ojulari said.
“The EPC contractors do their work, get paid, and move on. The financiers also operate for margins, not for long-term sustainability. Meanwhile, NNPC is left for the next 20 to 40 years to run these facilities — a task we never truly focused on.”
He further explained that global best practices in refinery operations require a robust Operations & Maintenance (O&M) framework led by an “operational excellence team,” which ensures the facilities are run efficiently.
According to Ojulari, such structures have historically been absent in Nigeria, leading to inefficiencies and wastage.
“Without operational readiness from the outset, you spend billions constructing a facility only to struggle with its operation,” he added.
Drawing from his experience with Shell and Qatargas, Ojulari emphasized that operational assurance should begin during the project phase and continue through commissioning.
The NNPC CEO said the current leadership has shifted focus to these neglected areas. “We are now prioritizing what was missing — appointing operational teams, ensuring proper training, and building the capacity to run these refineries sustainably,” he said.
Ojulari also confirmed ongoing talks with a Chinese firm for potential investment in one of the state-owned refineries, aimed at revitalizing operations and boosting domestic petroleum production.
Experts say NNPC’s renewed focus on operational excellence could mark a turning point for Nigeria’s refining sector, which has long struggled with inefficiency, underutilization, and dependency on imported refined products.
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