Enugu NNPC depot to provide 3,000 jobs in 2017

- The Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC) depot in Enugu state will
be revived next year
- This would restore over 3,000 jobs lost to the
facility’s long inactivity
- The depot was built in 1979 but have been
somewhat abandoned
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
(NNPC) depot in Enugu state will be revived
next year, The Guardian reports.

NNPC managing director, Dr Maikanti
Baru
According to the report, the National
Coordinator, Anti-Pipeline Vandalism and
Petroleum Products Adulteration, Prince Nexin
Udoka Ahanonu, told journalists at the weekend
in Enugu that the rehabilitation of the pipelines
had almost been completed.

His words: “It has been work is in progress. In
the past two weeks, we have been parading the
pipelines.
“For more than 10 years now, we have not had
supply to this depot. It has seriously affected
those of us operating the depot. We have lost
many of our members due to the unavailability of
products in Enugu depot.
“Many of us have gone bankrupt because some of
us are using bank loans to do business and since
the depot stopped working, many of us are going
as far as Lagos, Port Harcourt, Warri to source
for products.
“In the process, most of us lost funds. Trucks
were hijacked and what have you. Before the end
of April next year, Enugu depot will start
working.”
On his part, another stakeholder, Chief Livinus
Onu, said: “The closure of the depot has affected
our business as we go the extra mile to bring
these products, yet sell at the official price.
“This has always been at a great loss to our
members as we most often lift products at higher
rates from other depots.
“The reason we still sell at the official price is
because there are products everywhere at the
moment.”
According to findings, the Port Harcourt
refinery stopped supplies to the Enugu depot in
1996. The depot was built with an installed
capacity of 12,000,000m/3.
It has the capacity to stock Premium Motor
Spirit (PMS) or petrol, Dual Purpose Kerosene
(DPK) and Automobile Gas Oil (AGO), and it was
serving Enugu, Anambra, Kogi, Ebonyi and parts
of Imo, Benue and Cross River states.
With over 500 marketers, it supplied six million
litres of petrol, two million litres of kerosene
and another two million of diesel daily.
Since its inactivity, marketers had resorted to
sourcing products from Lagos, Warri and Port
Harcourt with the concomitant job loss.

In a related development, the NNPC has slated a
comprehensive rehabilitation of Nigeria’s
refineries in order for them to achieve optimal
capacity utilization for next year.
This was disclosed by the Chief Operating
Officer (COO), Refineries, of the NNPC, Mr.
Anibor Kragha, at the Annual General Meeting of
the three facilities in Abuja, on Wednesday,
December 20.