Amidst the continued incidence of shortage of petroleum products in most parts of the country, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), yesterday said the problem persists because the corporation has had to contend with the challenges posed by massive pipeline vandalization, closure of refineries and more than 80% dependence on product import.
Addressing newsmen in Abuja weekend, the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Engr. Funsho Kupolokun said vandalization of pipelines is principally responsible for hiccups being experienced in petroleum products supply across the country.
“Vandalism of products pipelines are now predominant in three axis that are very crucial to petroleum products distribution in the country, the Atlas Cove – Mosimi, Abuja – Suleja and Port Harcourt – Aba – Enugu -Makurdi axis”, he said.
According to him, the incidence of pipeline vandalization in the Port Harcourt area has risen from 600 line breaks in 2003 to about 1,650 between January – September, 2006, while Warri axis increased from 100 lines breaks to 600 during the same period.
Also Mosimi area that recorded only 50 line breaks in 2003, reported about 375 between January and September, 2006, Kupolokun said.
The GMD gave another worrisome revelation that Port Harcourt refinery (PHRC) which is about the only one currently in operation has packed up due to technical problems.
He said two primary gasoline producing units, the crude reforming and the Fluid Catalytic Units in PHRC are presently down and are undergoing repairs.
“This has drastically reduced PMS production from the refinery and product and product requirement in the Eastern axis has to depend completely on importation”, he said adding that imported products can only be loaded in Port Harcourt due to vandalization of the pipeline linking PH – Aba and Aba – Enugu – Makurdi – Yola axis.
He said the corporation has had to resort to massive importation to meet the shortfall arising from production loss from WRPC and KRPC which in turn has over-stretched import reception facilities.
Normally, in the event of small supply disruption, the corporation relies on its strategic reserves from various depots, however, NNPC said as a result of the prolonged restoration of vandalized pipelines, “our strategic reserves have gone down in a few cases”.
Speaking on measures being embarked upon to arrest the situation, Kupolokun said Federal Government has directed that all major marketers should build at least one mega filling station in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) within the next one year.
He said as part of the corporation’s network expansion initiative the company has entered into strategic alliance with eight banks for the construction of standard stations with eight PMS, two AGO and two kerosene nozzles.
According to him, NNPC is to guarantee a loan of N250m to each of the willing marketers who must have in possession a certificate of occupancy in respect of the land on which the facility would be built.
He said the beneficiaries are to be drawn from the 36 states of the federation including FCT.
The banks participating in this venture include, Zenith, Oceanic, Stanbic, UBA, Access, Diamond GTB, FCMB and Fidelity banks.