Explosion Rocks Warri Refinery, MEND Claims Responsibility

The Warri Refinery and Petrochemical Company, a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, was on Tuesday razed by fire.

It was gathered that the fire, which gutted the topping unit of the 35-year-old refinery, started about 11.00am, while crude oil refining process was on at the 125,000-barrel per day plant.

The entire Warri town and environs were said to have been engulfed by the smoke bellowing from the inferno. 

The fire was also said to have lasted for a few minutes before it was put off by fire fighters and safety officials of the company.

The cause of the inferno could not be immediately ascertained, but the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, a militant group, said it set the plant ablaze in fulfilment of its earlier threat to hit oil installations.

The acting Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Ms. Tumini Green, in a statement, confirmed that there was a fire outbreak in the topping unit of the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company.

She, however, said the fire was promptly brought under control through the combined effort of the fire department and other workers of the refinery.

Green explained that the fire, which started about 11am, was successfully extinguished without any fatality.

The fire was eventually put under control following after about an hour.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has claimed responsibility for the fires, stating that its intention was to burn the entire refinery down in its operation tagged “Hurricane Exodus”.

The group stated that “as long as President Goodluck Jonathan continues to rely on an unsustainable and fraudulent Niger Delta Amnesty programme, peace and security will continue to elude his government in the region. Hurricane Exodus is on course!”

The Warri refinery, the first government wholly owned refinery in the country, was inaugurated in 1978. It was built to process 100,000 barrels of crude oil per day but was later remodelled to process 125,000 barrels per day in 1987.