FACT CHECK: Can a refinery process 200 million barrels petroleum products daily?

On August 21, Cajethan Aniaku, commander of NNS Pathfinder, said the navy discovered an illegal crude oil refining site with a capacity of 200 million barrels per day (bpd) of petroleum products.

Speaking to journalists during a visit to the site, Aniaku said the illegal refiners use drums to process the crude oil into diesel and other petroleum products, stolen from a wellhead.

As the operation is still ongoing, they have destroyed over 500 drums containing over 200 litres of automotive gas oil (AGO), amounting to over 2 million litres of AGO and the operation is still ongoing,” he said.

“And this site is capable of producing 200 million barrels of AGO and illegal refined products on a daily basis.”

VERIFICATION

Aniaku measured the quantity of the products in barrels, however, petroleum products are typically measured in litres, therefore, the measurement would be converted to litres.

For a refinery or illegal refining site to produce 200 million barrels of petroleum products daily, this means it is capable of processing 31.8 billion litres of petroleum products every day.

This is because a barrel typically measures about 159 litres.

In a month, the illegal refining site would have produced about 954 billion litres – given that the month ends on the 30th day.

In an ideal situation, when a barrel of crude oil is processed, the volume of petroleum products can measure more than 159 litres (a barrel).

Consequently, since Aniaku said the illegal refinery produced 200 million barrels of diesel and petroleum products (31.8 billion litres) daily, this would translate to over 200 million bpd of crude oil.

NIGERIA’S CRUDE OIL DATA AND THE WORLD

So far in 2024, Nigeria has recorded the highest crude oil production of 1.6 million bpd (including condensates) and and the lowest of 1.4 million barrels per day (with condensates), according to the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) data.

In July, the country produced 1.3 million barrels per day of crude oil.

What the naval officer implies is that the illegal refining site processes more than what the entire country produces — raising questions as to how the illegal refining site sources its crude feedstock.

Moreso, the Dangote refinery, touted as Africa’s largest refinery, with a capacity to process 650,000 bpd, has a workforce of 30,000 people.

It is, therefore, questionable how such illegal refining site would employ much more workforce to carry out its deeds.

The naval officer claim also implies that the petroleum products processed at the illegal refinery surpasses the world’s average monthly crude production in 2023.

According to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the world’s total crude oil production was 73.24 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2023.

Commenting on the claim, Jide Pratt, an oil and gas expert, said the presumption that an illegal refinery would produce 200 million barrels of petroleum products per day “is a fallacy”.

“The Dangote refinery as the largest single train refinery in Africa, can not produce 100 million litres a day combined AGO and PMS,” he said.

“It is hard to believe an illegal refinery would have the infrastructure nor feedstock to do so.”

VERDICT

It is impractical for a refinery — legal or illegal — to process crude larger than the world’s production, especially as the crude oil is obtained from an oil wellhead (a single facility).