As efforts at ending the
lingering fuel scarcity continued yesterday, the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC) has disclosed that the Port Harcourt Refinery has resumed
production of five million litres of petrol daily.
The reopening of the nation’s
largest refining outfit would be regarded as a major boost as the Federal
Government continues the fight to end the crippling shortages that have now
entered into its third month.
The Group General Manager, Group
Public Affairs of the NNPC, Garuba Deen Muhammad, told journalists during an
inspection of some petrol stations in Abuja with the Executive Director, Supply
and Distribution, Nigerian Petroleum Marketing Company (NPMC), Justine Ezeala,
that normalcy in fuel supply would soon return.
According to him: “The Port
Harcourt Refinery has being refining for quite a while now; from last week,
between three and five million litres. We expect Kaduna to begin any time from
now and we also have vessels discharging fuel and so, all these combined
measures will bring down the situation. When you have this kind of situation,
people will naturally get agitated but people are getting calm now because they
know the supply gap has now been bridged and it is a question of distribution.
They are all patient and that was what happened in Lagos. The situation has
virtually normalised in Lagos because the motorists cooperated,” he said.