TheCable

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) says the Kaduna refining and petrochemical company now produces 3.2 million litres of petrol on a daily basis.

Ohi Alegbe, the corporation’s group general manager of public affairs, disclosed this in a statement, saying the plant commenced production over the weekend with an initial PMS yield of about 1.5 million litres.

“The injection of this volume into the system will significantly impact ongoing special intervention efforts designed to bring relief to motorists across the country,” the statement read.

Ibe Kachikwu, the state minister of petroleum had initially ordered staff of the NNPC to intervene in the monitoring of fuel distribution and retail system at filling stations across the country.

According to Alegbe, the situation at most filling stations visited in Abuja remains calm and orderly as the staff of the corporation helped to “fast-track the process of dispensing fuel” to motorists in the federal capital territory.

Speaking shortly after visiting some retail outlets within Abuja’s central area, Babatunde Adeniran, NNPC’s group executive director, commercial and investment, said so far, the exercise has recorded some success.

“Our staff are putting in all their best to ensure that orderliness is restored in most of the filling stations,” the statement quoted him as saying.

“They are also there to ensure that nobody creates a situation that will hamper the discharge of products to ordinary Nigerians. So far, they are doing well in this regard.”

He was said to have explained that the exercise was “a hands-on approach designed to ensure that Nigerians do not suffer unnecessarily at the hands of unscrupulous marketers.”

“At one of the filling stations in Asokoro today, the police came to assist us to clear out some motorists trying to jump the queue. That is most commendable,” he reportedly said.

“I hope Nigerians can have the spirit of orderliness, the spirit of cohesion and the spirit of responsibility in order to help this process.”

The Kaduna refinery is the third of Nigeria’s four refineries, and was established in the mid-1970s.