"Enough petrol for Nigeria", says NNPC

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) says the volume of refined petroleum products in the country are enough to meet domestic demand in spite of attacks on pipelines and facilities that have affected daily crude oil production.

Olayinka Agoro, Group General Manager (Refining and Petrochemicals) of the state own oil company, gave the assurance in Kaduna late Thursday.

Mr. Agoro represented the NNPC's Group Managing Director, Mohammed Barkindo, at the graduation ceremony of a youth empowerment programme of Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company (KRPC).

"There is no problem about products supply. We have a lot of vessels out there in the high seas ready to discharge... There is sufficiency of petroleum products, including gasoline. I can tell you that we have 36 days sufficiency as we speak," he said.

He said the NNPC have been unable to repair the crude line that was burnt on May 25 as a result the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company (WRPC) have not been operational since then.

"A team of PPMC officials, people of the community where the attack took place and the JTF are mobilising to the site to get the line repaired because the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company (WRPC) could not run since May 25," Mr. Agoro added.

Fuel queues re-emerged in Lagos and other parts of the country in April and May because of a fire incident at one of the Pipeline and Products Marketing Company (PPMC) facilities, and a strike by the Petroleum Tankers arm of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) who were protesting the seizure of 50 trucks by the Lagos State Traffic Management Agency.

He also revealed that a team of officials had been dispatched to Escravos to repair the facilities there.

"We have a team on ground but we are not getting concrete information about when the repair works on that line will be finished. However, all preparations are in place to get it repaired," he said.

The pipelines connecting flow stations around Delta State to Escravos have being blown up by the recent wave of militant attacks against the oil industry.

As a result, both Shell and Agip have declared force majuere on their crude oil production, shutting-in at least 133, 000 barrels per day of oil.