Fuel Scarcity: Kaduna Refinery Begins Fuel Supply Today

refineryThe Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) will from today, Tuesday, start trucking out Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) also known as petrol from the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company (KRPC) following the restart of production at the facility over the weekend.

The refinery is expected to inject an additional 1.5 million liters of fuel to the domestic market, which translates to about 50 trucks daily.

It would be recalled that production at the KRPC was disrupted in September due to pipeline vandalization and the plant’s main supply of crude oil was cut off.

Speaking to newsmen yesterday in Kaduna on the development, the Managing Director of KRPC, Engineer Saidu Aliyu, noted that the pipelines had been fixed while the plant now receives crude oil supplies from Warri, Delta State.

According to Engr. Aliyu, the refinery which recommenced production last week is operating at 60 per cent of installed capacity but that hopefully, the production capacity is expected to increase in the next few weeks when it attains about 90 per cent installed capacity to pump about 3.5 million liters of fuel per day to the domestic market.

“Nigerians need to be patient, by tomorrow (today) I expect the PPMC to  commence trucking and the quantity we are  looking at initially is in the neighbourhood of 1.5million liters per day which of course in the next few days we will  increase it to two million liters of PMS and about 600,00 liters of kerosene”, he said.

Aliyu stressed that the support KRPC was getting from the top management of the NNPC and Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu and President Muhammadu Buhari, it was making efforts to not only repair but safeguard the pipelines.

The KRPC boss added that crude oil now flows only from Warri to Kaduna and there will be sustenance of operations.

“Warri to Port Harcourt, Escravos to Warri and Warri to Kaduna, these are the three pipelines that supply crude oil to the NNPC.

“Right now the only operational line is Warri to Kaduna. As we speak, contractors have moved in on the segment of Escravos in Warri, in the next three weeks hopefully, we will start having supply of crude oil”, he said.

Engr. Aliyu furtyer stated that Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of the refinery is in three stages and the first, which is to operate at a minimum of 60 per cent installed capacity, has been achieved.