The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) has announced that the Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC) will undergo yet another shutdown — this time for “scheduled maintenance and sustainability assessment” starting May 24, 2025.

In a statement released Saturday by Chief Corporate Communications Officer, Femi Soneye, the NNPC explained the shutdown as part of its broader plan to ensure long-term reliability of the facility.

“We are working closely with all relevant stakeholders, including the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), to ensure the maintenance and assessment activities are carried out efficiently and transparently,” the statement read.

“NNPC Ltd remains steadfast in its commitment to delivering sustainable energy security.”

However, the phrase “sustainable energy security” is beginning to ring hollow for Nigerians who have seen years of similar pledges lead to dead ends.

A Refinery That Produces No Fuel

The Port Harcourt refinery — comprising the older 60,000 bpd and newer 150,000 bpd units — was supposed to be a crown jewel in Nigeria’s bid to revive local refining. In August 2021, the Federal Executive Council approved a sweeping rehabilitation plan across four government-owned refineries: Port Harcourt (210,000 bpd), Warri (125,000 bpd), and Kaduna (110,000 bpd), giving a combined nameplate capacity of 445,000 barrels per day — the basis for the crude intervention stock allocated to the NNPC.

The cost was staggering:

• $1.48 billion for Port Harcourt
• $897.7 million for Warri
• $586.9 million for Kaduna

That’s a total of nearly $3 billion, in a country plagued by budget deficits, currency instability, and widespread poverty. Because the federal government couldn’t cough up the full sum at once, it granted the NNPC leeway, just nine days before the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) was signed into law on August 21, 2021, to source funds externally.

NNPC structured a series of forward-sale agreements, pledging Nigeria’s future crude oil output in exchange for immediate cash from multilateral development banks and oil trading companies. These traders were granted preferential creditor status — meaning repayment was prioritized, regardless of Nigeria’s domestic needs.

“$1.04 billion came from a multilateral development bank, while $450 million came from a trader that has been collecting 67,000 barrels per day as repayment for a few years,” energy expert Kelvin Emmanuel said.

“The crude that should have been sold to earn FX for stabilizing the naira and funding the budget deficit has been swept down the drain. And the EFCC is quiet — but when it’s yahoo boys, you’ll see their erection.”

The NNPC has never denied these arrangements. The company once described the forward sale as a creative financing model. But nearly four years later, the refinery is still yet to produce any refined fuel for the Nigerian market — only official statements, ribbon-cutting ceremonies, and now, recurring shutdowns.

A Pattern of Dysfunction and Secrecy

The PHRC reportedly resumed operations briefly in late 2024 after years of inactivity, a milestone celebrated by government officials who framed it as a turning point for local refining. But just weeks later, in December, the refinery was again shut down — quietly. No official reason was provided at the time, and the public was left to guess whether the plant had ever truly come online.

Now, with this new shutdown announced as “planned maintenance,” analysts are questioning the logic of spending billions on a facility that has yet to show functional output. The opacity surrounding the true status of the refinery’s performance only deepens suspicions.

Despite the enormous cost of refinery rehabilitation, Nigeria still relies largely on imported fuel. This continues to drain foreign reserves and deepen inflationary pressures, with petrol prices frequently adjusted upward since the removal of the fuel subsidy in 2023.

While NNPC insists that the latest shutdown is routine, the optics are damning. The refinery’s inability to produce despite billions of dollars pumped into rehabilitation has sparked criticism, with many believing that it’s just another plot to embezzle public funds.

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Google cofounder Sergey Brin is embracing artificial intelligence not just to build products—but to manage people.

In a recent episode of the All In podcast released Tuesday, Brin revealed he’s been relying on AI to handle leadership tasks at Gemini, Google’s large language model unit, where he returned in 2023 to help steer the tech giant’s efforts in the escalating AI race.

Since stepping away from his executive role in 2019, Brin has largely remained behind the scenes. But his comeback has coincided with a pivotal moment for Google, which is fending off fierce competition from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity.

Now, Brin is using the very tools his company is developing to manage teams—automating everything from delegating assignments to identifying which employees should be promoted.

“Management is like the easiest thing to do with the AI,” Brin said on the podcast, describing how he uses artificial intelligence to analyze group chats and assign responsibilities across teams.

“It could suck down a whole chat space and then answer pretty complicated questions. I was like: ‘OK, summarize this for me. OK, now assign something for everyone to work on.’”

He acknowledged that the cut-and-paste style of his responses made it obvious he was using AI, but that didn’t matter—it got the job done.

“It worked remarkably well,” he added.

Perhaps more startling was Brin’s revelation that he had used the tool to recommend a promotion. By analyzing group chat activity, the AI flagged a quiet engineer who hadn’t drawn much attention in meetings but was doing standout work behind the scenes.

“It actually picked out this young woman engineer who I didn’t even notice, she wasn’t very vocal,” Brin said. “I talked to the manager, actually, and he was like, ‘Yeah, you know what? You’re right. Like she’s been working really hard, did all these things.’”

The promotion, Brin added, “ended up happening.”

While AI is widely being tested in customer service, logistics, and even coding, Brin’s experiment reflects an emerging frontier: using AI to make decisions that directly affect people’s careers. His approach is already raising questions about the implications of AI-assisted leadership—particularly in companies where management decisions shape both innovation and workplace culture.

But it’s not just Brin. Other tech leaders are also integrating AI into their daily routines. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently said he uses tools like ChatGPT and Gemini as daily tutors to break down complex subjects.

“I might say, ‘Start by explaining it to me like I’m a 12-year-old,’ and then work your way up into a doctorate-level,” Huang said.

Duolingo’s CTO also revealed this week that AI plays a key role in his three-step leadership method—evaluating whether a task should be delegated, delayed, or automated with ChatGPT.

However, not every executive is ready to turn over management duties to a machine. LinkedIn COO Dan Shapero recently told Business Insider that while AI can digest and summarize information, it still falls short on the human side of leadership.

“I’m not sure that it’s shown that it can inspire a team or that it can connect with people at a deeper level,” he said.

For Brin, the approach seems rooted in a belief that AI can outperform humans in select managerial tasks. He said on the podcast that AI is already better than him at math and coding—two areas in which he once excelled. Delegating management, he implied, was simply the next logical step.

His hands-on approach could signal how high-level corporate decisions may soon be informed, or quietly decided, by algorithms as the AI revolution accelerates. However, it is not clear for now whether this leads to more meritocratic outcomes or introduces new biases. What is clear considering Brin’s experience is that leadership, once considered one of the last human strongholds in the workplace, is no longer immune to disruption.