Abuja — The Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Engineer Funsho Kupolokun has confirmed that the two refineries in Port-Harcourt are functioning at their optimal capacity producing up to 90 percent of installed output.

The NNPC boss stated this recently while giving update status report on nations' refineries in Abuja. The country operates four refineries which are cited in Kaduna, Warri and two in Port Harcourt. Both the Kaduna and Warri refinery have been down due to epileptic supply of crude oil. Kupolokun said "Kaduna and Warri are down because we cannot get crude to them as at today. Port Harcourt is running at the highest crude full blown, the two refineries together. They are running at the highest tripod they had ever run. We are doing something in the order of 90 percent tripod as at today. That brings the challenge of evacuation. We are not able to evacuate as fast as we are producing because we have never really tested this limit in the past. Sometimes therefore, we have to strip one of the refineries to reduce the accumulated product."

"We are doing very well in Port- Harcourt. Of course products are available in all parts of the country in spite of all the challenges of having two of refineries down. All depots are wet. All the tanks are wet, the only one dry in the past was Ore depot and it is back" he added. He, however, noted that oil and gas in recent times has been faced by insecurity which he said was affecting oil supply, as well as having attendant increases in crude oil and gas prices. Kupolokun was addressing senior members of the corporation that participated in course 038 and 039.

He said the down stream sector of the Nigerian oil industry was becoming more vibrant through liberalization and rehabilitation of existing facilities noting that the moribund Ore depot shut down since 1998 as a result of economic saboteurs became alive recently. Similarly, he said, construction work on six floating mega stations was on-going while first out of them is billed for commission in July 2006, just as the construction of five mega stations has commenced at Ibadan, Benin, Gombe, Jos and Katsina, under the phase 4 retail development programme.