NIGERIAN National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, on Friday refuted claims that it intends to relocate its gas marketing subsidiary, Nigerian Gas Marketing Company Limited, NGMC, from Warri to Abuja.

In a series of tweets by the corporation’s General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Ndu Ughamadu, he maintained that the subsidiary remains in the Niger Delta region.

Ughamadu also said NNPC has not planned to spend N120 million as yearly rent and N294 million in relocating NGMC to Abuja, urging members of the public to disregard the story.

He said the clarification was necessary because of a misleading report circulating on the social media about the purported relocation and allocation of the huge sums of money for that purpose.

“NGMC remains committed to staying and executing its business operations in the Niger Delta. The company is poised to sustaining the existing relations between it and its esteemed stakeholders and members of the public,” the corporation affirmed.

In a related development, Group Managing Director, NNPC, Maikanti Baru, disclosed that the nation would increase its crude oil reserves to 40 billion barrels and production capacity to four million barrels per day by 2025.

He made this known at the Society of Petroleum Engineers’ Oloibiri Lecture Series and Energy Forum 2019, held yesterday in Abuja.

In his remarks, he disclosed that the nation’s capacity requirement includes Dangote’s 650,000 barrels per day refinery and NNPC’s current nameplate capacity of 445,000 barrels per day for its three refineries in Warri, Kaduna and Port Harcourt.

“This leaves a shortfall of 20 million litres which is equivalent to 427,000 bpd. To address this shortfall in Premium Motor Spirit, PMS demand, NNPC is adding 215,000 bpd of refining capacity through private- sector driven collocation at our existing facilities in Port Harcourt Refining Company at 100,000 bpd and Warri Refining and Petrochemicals Company at 115,000 bpd,” he said.

In March, NNPC engaged the services of Maire Tecnimont, an Italian oil and gas firm in a contract worth $50 million to refurbish the Port Harcourt refinery, and ensure local sufficiency in refined petroleum products.

The contract billed to last for six months in two phases would involve checks and equipment inspections which is expected to boost production capacity to 210,000 bpd.

The state-owned oil enterprise had held talks with different oil firms to overhaul its dilapidated refineries considering to pay, using offtake of refined products rather than cash, according to a Reuters report.