The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Tuesday announced that the nation’s three refineries in Kaduna, Port Harcourt and Warri have attained a combined daily production of 6.76 million litres of petrol per day.
The corporation in a statement by its spokesman Ohi Alegbe, said the figure is projected to increase to over 10 million litres per day by the end of January 2016.
The statement which gave a breakdown of petrol production from the plants indicates that while Port Harcourt refinery which was re-streamed a week earlier is producing about 4.09 million litres daily, the Kaduna refinery is contributing about 1.29 million litres and Warri which was re-streamed on Sunday is adding a yield of 1.38 million litres.
The current figure is an improvement compared with the 1.5 million litres Kaduna refinery was producing as at Christmas day, 2015, while the Warri refinery which was then undergoing restreaming, was producing nothing.
NNPC said that the PMS volumes from the refineries which are currently operating at an appreciable percentage of their nameplate capacities will help stabilise the fuel supply and distribution in the country.
When working at full installed capacity, the refineries can produce a combined 19 million litres of petrol daily, but years of neglect and rot have made the refineries’ operational capacities a far cry from their nameplates.
Speaking on December, 25, 2015, after an inspection of the Port Harcourt refinery, Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu said the refinery was producing 1million litres of fuel translating to about 30 trucks daily, adding that efforts are on to increase the capacity to about 2 million litres per day.
Assuring Nigerians that the fuel scarcity hardship will soon be a thing of the past, he said the combined production of the nation’s three refineries is expected to hit 10 million litres per day by the end of January 2016, all things being equal.
-Leadership