Former governorship candidate in Rivers State and billionaire businessman, Tonye Cole has reacted to the commencement of production by the Port Harcourt Refinery.
According to him, it was the biggest shame that Nigeria had none of its refineries working.
Mr Cole stated this when he appeared on Channels Television hours after the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) spokesperson Olufemi Soneye announced that the Port Harcourt refinery has kicked off refining of crude oil.
The state-owned firm said the plant will begin at 60 percent capacity with 60,000 barrels per day of crude oil production.
The NNPCL also said that the Warri Refinery will soon commence petroleum product production.
Mr. Cole said the development will return businesses to the Rivers State capital and remove shame from the face of Nigeria.
“I think it’s extremely good news for Rivers State. The Port Harcourt Refinery used to be a central hub, and once it was working, you had trucks coming there, businesses operating, even from the mammy market.
“You had people who would sell water. So, any kind of business activity. Then you move to Nigeria, I’ll say, first of all, psychologically, over the years, I think it has been one of the biggest shames that an oil-producing country at the level of Nigeria could not say we have refineries that were working.
“You don’t say you’re that big yet you don’t have working refineries. It was a big shame to Nigeria. One of the things we needed to do was to remove that shame from our face.”
