Economy-crippling Fuel Scarcity May Be Here For A While
 31st JAN 2007

The current acute fuel scarcity in the country may not cease until May this year despite the resort of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to 100 per cent importation. The NNPC, in a newspaper advertisement on Thursday, explained that pipelines vandalism had affected both Warri and Kaduna refineries while the Port Harcourt refinery was shut down due to severe technical problems. Thus, pumping fuel from the refineries has become impossible. Even with fuel importation, there is still the problem of distribution as the Atlas Cove, Apapa, the major import route for about 80 per cent of the nation’s products import, suffered pipelines vandalism thrice in December 2006. This has made it impossible to distribute petroleum products from Mosimi. In the advertisement signed by Dr. Levi Ajuonuma, NNPC’s General Manager, Group Public Affairs, the corporation stated that “on February 18, 2006, the Chanomi Creek pipeline, which supplies crude oil from Escravos to Warri and Kaduna refineries, was severely vandalized, putting the two refineries out of service. The Port Harcourt refinery was the only refinery in operation. This outage, therefore, translated into an 80 per cent dependency on product importation. Efforts by NNPC to repair the pipelines proved abortive and consequently, the refineries are out of service.”

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