PPMC completes rehabilitation of nine petroleum depots

The Pipelines and Product Marketing Company (PPMC) on Thursday said it had completed the rehabilitation of nine petroleum products depots across the country in last one year.

Mr Nasir Imodagbe, Manager, Public Affairs and External Relations, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that the depots would soon be inaugurated

Imodagbe said that rehabilitated depots were located in Mosinmi in Ogun, Ejibo in Lagos State, Makurdi, Yola, Gombe, Ilorin, Ibadan, Port Harcourt and Aba.

He said that completion of the rehabilitation of the storage facilities would strengthen the country’s products storage and would fast track easy loading of petroleum products across the country.

“With this rehabilitation, issues of scarcity and excessive queuing of trucks at most NNPC/PPMC depots would reduce drastically.

“We have also revived all petroleum products channels to expiate prompt and effective discharge of product to all depots across the country,’’ he said.

The PPMC spokesman said that the management had also deployed modern technology to tackle pipeline vandalism through the reconstruction of 4.5 kilometre of ATC-Mosimi pipeline using Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) across hotspots.

Imodagbe said that SAPPERS, the Engineering arm of the Nigerian Army, was engaged to clear and grade some Pipeline Right of Way (PROW).

“It is on record that on assumption of office of this management in February 2011, there were only four functional depots -the Satellite Town, Mosimi, Ibadan and Ore — out of the 21 loading depots in the country.

“This does not include those attached to the Warri, Kaduna and Port- Harcourt refineries.

“It became necessary to engage the services of private depots to enable bridging to inactive depots, especially to the whole of the North,’’ he said.

Imodagbe said that the management, within the first year in office, re-inaugurated the Kaduna-Suleja line, Kaduna-Kano line, Suleja-Minna line, Kaduna-Gusau line, Kaduna-Jos line and delivered products to Minna, Kano, Gusau, Jos and Suleja depots.

“It is interesting to note that some of these depots had not worked for over 15years.

“Besides, all the lines under system 2B were rehabilitated and products delivered to Ore, Ilorin and Ibadan depots,” Imodagbe said. (NAN