The Nigerian National petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said that diesel price nationwide crashed by 42 per cent due to strategic intervention by the Corporation to sustain supply of the product.
The Corporation in its May report released in Abuja, on Thursday said the move helped to stop unpleasant experience witnessed in the first quarter of 2017. It said that the retail price of the product in the first quarter rose to N300 per litre.
The monthly report, the 22nd edition, like the previous ones, is designed to promote and sustain effective communication with stakeholders. “The intervention pushed the product’s retail prices as at May 2017 to rally between N175 and N200 across the country,’’ it said. On Gas supply, it said that the average national daily gas supply to the nation’s power plants rose by 64 per cent.
“The average Natural Gas supply to power plants of 729 million standard cubic feet of gas per day (mmscfd) in May was 63.74 per cent higher than the daily gas supply to the plants, of 446mmscfd, during the same month in 2016,’’ it said . The report added that the average national daily gas production in the month under review stood at 242.70billion cubic feet (BCF) or an average of 7,829.11mmscfd, representing a slight increase, compared with April gas production of 672mmscfd. It also stated that NNPC, within the period under review, activated plans to build 500million standard cubic feet of gas-per-day metering plant to serve the planned capacity expansion of Egbin Power Plant.
According to the report, the three refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna were operational in May 2017, with a minimum of 6m litres of PMS, otherwise called petrol. It added that it had a similar quantity of Automotive Gas Oil loaded out from the refineries daily.
The three NNPC refineries have a combined nameplate capacity of 445,000 barrels of crude oil per stream day. The report indicated that the rehabilitation of the refineries would restore their nameplate capacities. On oil pipeline breaks, it noted that it had in recent time witnessed a steady reduction through the months following the sustained community/stakeholders’ engagement initiative.
It further said that the number of pipeline breaks recorded within the period stood at 55, which was an improvement compared to 82 vandalized points recorded in April 2017. This figures, it said represented about 33 per cent reduction relative to the previous months and also a remarkable improvement to corresponding period of May 2016 which recorded 260 cases. During the period under review, the reports noted that NNPC stepped up efforts to actualise government’s initiative on co-location of some refineries. (NAN)
