The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu has disclosed that the Port Harcourt Refining Company now produces five million litres of petrol while the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company also produces two million litres of petrol per day.
Kachikwu, who doubles as the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, made this statement while re-commissioning the Bonny-Port Harcourt Refinery crude pipeline that has just been rehabilitated after it was out of use for so many years due to incessant pipeline vandalization, as part of efforts to find lasting solutions to the perennial fuel scarcity.
This is as the Kaduna zonal office of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) at the weekend dispensed over 13,000 litres of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), also known as petrol, free of charge to motorists as punishment to fuel stations for hoarding the product and selling at odd hours above the regulated pump price of N86.50k,
According to a statement, on Sunday, April 24, by the NNPC’s spokesman, Garba Deen Mohammad, Kachikwu stated that the Kaduna refining company is also scheduled to start production any moment from now, adding that the coming on stream of the three refineries would go a long way to ensure sufficient supply and distribution of petrol across the country.
He stated that the NNPC under his watch had been able to recover the two critical crude supply pipelines, the Escravos to Warri and Bonny to Port Harcourt crude supply pipelines, which are critical to the downstream sector of the industry.
“Port Harcourt is back in production, Warri is back in production, Kaduna as at today is receiving crude and will soon be back in production. Lagos is easing off now from fuel scarcity and Abuja is doing the same thing, and once Kaduna begins production, the North will see a lot of improvement,” Kachikwu said.
