Hopes that the nation may soon get over its continued reliance of importation of refined petroleum products brightened today with the announcement that the Kaduna refinery has resumed the production.

The refinery stopped production about eight months ago.

The management said with the recent turn around maintenance it just went through, it would be able to produce at 60 percent capacity.

The disclosure was made by the managing director of the company, Saidu Mohammed, who added that the refinery would further increase production when its installation capacity reaches 90 percent the first quarter of 2016.
The refinery which was originally designed to refine 110,000 barrels of crude per day currently refines 36,000 barrels of crude per day and produces 3,083,100 litres of petrol, 1,233 litres of kerosene and 2,102.400 litres of diesel on a daily basis.

It was gathered that the new production capacity of the refinery would save the nation about $117,218 daily on importation of LPG, $1.261 million daily on importation of PMS, $448, 364 daily on importation of kerosene, $759, 436 daily on diesel and $484,871 daily on importation of fuel oil.

That adds up to a total saving strategy of $3.071 million used for fuel importation only.

President Muhammadu Buhari has consistently stated that he would revamp the petroleum industry and save the country millions of dollars being lost due to corruption and misappropriation.

In recent weeks, he has made strategic changes in the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, which is viewed as actions aimed at repositioning the nation’s corruption-ridden oil and gas industry.

Part of the measures employed to sanitize the industry was the recent changes in the leadership of the NNPC.

It would be recalled that the president recently sacked the general Managing Director, NNPC and heads of parastatals of the NNPC.