Perhaps, the hardship of fuel scarcity suffered by Nigerians might be coming to end as the Port Harcourt refinery which has a capacity of 210,000 barrels a day restarts operation, a spokesman for the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC said on Wednesday.
“It is not in full capacity. Production is between three and five million litres daily,” spokesman Garba Deen Muhammad said. Work resumed last week. Despite being Africa’s largest crude exporter, Nigeria imports almost all of its gasoline. Dollar shortages and the shutdown of its refineries have for weeks left motorists queuing for petrol across the nation.
NNPC said this month it planned to restart 110,000-barrel-per-day Kaduna refinery. Nigeria has a refining capacity of 445,000 barrels per day from three refineries but they have been mostly shut due to years of neglect and corruption.
Last month, Minister of State for Petroleum Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu said Nigeria was in talks with oil companies Chevron, Total and ENI seeking help to revamp the ailing refineries.
