Oil marketers have talked about their hope in renovating Nigeria’s 21 depots owned by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) as the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries start operations.
Although the NNPC’s assured that they will revamp the depots, dealers in the petroleum industry stated that it is important to expedite the repair of the facilities to increase the gains of the refineries.
The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) also stated that the commencement of the two refineries is enough to restore the depots and reduce petrol prices.
According to them, pipelines supplying petroleum products to the depots have either been vandalised or old due to years of neglect, leading to NNPC using private depots to store petroleum products.
The national oil firm installed pipelines nationwide, reaching 5.120km in length, to boost crude oil supply to the refineries and product evacuation. The infrastructure was built to distribute petroleum products via pipelines to depots, easing their movement to retail outlets.
However, following the decline in domestic refining capacity and the focus on fuel imports, the NNPC abandoned facility maintenance and relied more on private depots.
Depots that are idle are the Aba, Benin, Enugu, Gusau, Gombe, Ibadan, Ilorin, Jos, Kano, Makurdi, Maiduguri, Minna, Ore, Yola, Warri, Port Harcourt, Ejigbo, Mosimi, Kaduna, Calabar, and Suleja depots.
Source: www.mynigeria.com
