Fuel Scarcity Looms As NNPC Shuts PH, Kaduna Refineries

There are indications that the country may soon be hit by acute fuel shortage as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has announced the “operational shutdown” of the Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries, owing to crude supply challenges arising from recent attacks on vital crude oil pipelines.

Few days ago, suspected militants blew up oil installations in Delta State in the oil-rich Niger Delta which has adversely affected crude transfer to the two refineries.

In a statement by Mr. Ohi Alegbe, group general manager of the corporation, the plants were shut simultaneously on Sunday after the Bonny-Okrika crude supply line to the Port Harcourt Refinery and the Escravos-Warri crude supply line to the Kaduna Refinery suffered breaches.

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He stated that before the closure, the Port Harcourt Refinery was recording a daily PMS yield of over 4.1 million litres while Kaduna Refinery was posting a daily petrol production of about 1.3 million litres.

“The Warri Refining and Petrochemicals Company, WRPC is still on stream and producing a little above 1.4 million Litres of petrol per day,” the statement said. However, NNPC assured that it had “put in place strategies to guarantee unimpeded country-wide availability of petroleum products”.

“In response to the unexpected setback, we have activated comprehensive remedial measures to sustain the prevailing stability in the supply and distribution of petroleum products across the country,” NNPC added.

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