From Dennis Mernyi, Abuja
Nigeria’s petroleum products users’ dream of sustained supply may soon be cut as the recentclosure of Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries by the government have raised anxiety over another round of fuel scarcity across the country.
Fears of a possible relapse to the days of long queues came recently when the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) announced that two refineries in Kaduna and Port Harcourt, were shut due to inability to pump crude following attacks and vandalism on oil and gas major facilities at the Escravos pipelines in Delta State by some suspected militants.
The NNPC had cited sabotage to crude oil pipelines and breaches to the Bonny-Okrika supply line to Port Harcourt and the Escravos-Warri pipeline to Kaduna as reasons for close of the two plants, on January 20, 2016.
“In response to the unexpected setback, we have activated comprehensive remedial measures to sustain the prevailing stability in the supply and distribution of petroleum products across the country,” Ohi Alegbe, Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division of the corporation stated in confirmation.
Before the closure, Port Harcourt Refinery was producing over 4.1 million litres while Kaduna Refinery was posting about 1.3 million litres of petrol production daily.
Of course, that is different from other by-products of fuel accruing to the government.
As it stands, only the Warri Refining and Petrochemicals Company, (WRPC) is producing a little above 1.4 million litres of petrol per day for local consumption of millions of Nigerians.
A detailed analysis of the figures shows that Nigeria is losing a whopping sum of N435, 034,800 to the closure daily. A flip to the other side would reveal that the over 2000 people estimated to be working directly or indirectly with the plants are also going to be affected.
There are fears that the closure might bring back the winding issue of fuel scarcity in the country.
Even the power generation from the major gas plants across the country at the moment are badly affected.
Babatunde Fashola, Minister of Power, Works and Housing had raised the alarm over the development saying that the country was losing some $2.3 million (2.1 million euros) a day to attacks on gas facilities and lost electricity production.
But Nigeria’s military however has said it would no longer tolerate the sabotage, which blamed on criminal elements bent on destroying the nation’s strategic assets.