Baru disclosed this in his New Year message issued by the Corporation spokesman, Mr. Ndu Ughamadu, in Abuja, on Tuesday.
He said that in spite of the challenge, major rehabilitation works were carried out in all the three refineries.
Baru noted that the Warri Refinery and Petrochemical Company (WRPC) had its Distribution Control System (DCS) successfully upgraded while the Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC) had major interventions in Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit, (FCCU) and Power Plant Unit (PPU) fixed.
He added that Kaduna Refinery and Petrochemical Company (KRPC) was undergoing major repairs of its FCCU, Catalytic Reforming Unit (CRU) and Crude Distillation Unit 2 (CDU2).
According to him, efforts are afoot to get the original builders of the refineries to carry out TAM on them after securing favourable private funding for the exercise.
On the downstream sector, he said that although 2018 was riddled with some supply shortages, he was delighted that the corporation rose to the occasion with the support of President Muhammadu Buhari and the resilience and hard work of NNPC staff members.
“As at today, there is fuel availability in the nooks and crannies of the country,’’ he said.
He further disclosed that the NNPC imported a total of 15.874, million metric tonnes of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), otherwise called petrol through the DSDP and the NFSF arrangement in 2018.
This, he said, represented 62 percent increase over the 2017 supplies of 9.807 metric tonnes.
“As at today, the NNPC has 2.98 billion litres, equivalent to over 59 days sufficiency at 50 million litres daily evacuation,” he said
He added that the corporation’s depots had been resuscitated and put to use through decanting of over 140 million litres of PMS nationwide, explaining that systems 2B and 2E pipelines supplying petroleum products to South West, South-South and South East Regions had been resuscitated.
On the Industry milestones in the outgone year, Baru disclosed that the Egina project had achieved First Oil at 11.20 pm on Dec. 29, 2018, while he noted that the Egina Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessels was currently adding 200,000 barrels of oil per day to the country’s crude oil output.
He further stated that Nigeria’s crude oil daily production recorded an upward swing of about 2.09 million barrels in 2018, translating to a nine percent increment, compared with the 2017 average daily production of 1.86 million barrels.
Compared against the low-level daily crude oil production in 2016 and what obtains now, Baru said the nation had maintained a line of consistent year-on-year improvement.
He explained that the average production from NPDC’s operated assets alone grew from an average of 108,000 of oil per day (bod) in 2017 to 165,000bod in 2018.
He described the feat as the strongest production growth within the oil Industry in recent times, even as he added that it was worth being celebrated.
The GMD said NPDC’s equity production share, which stands at 172,000 bod, representing about eight percent of national daily production, was no less impressive.
He added that the desired results were the outcomes of initiatives his Management team intended, among which, he noted, were the Asset Management Team (AMT) structure, Strategic Financing, Units Autonomy and security architecture framework.
Baru promised that NNPC would stick to the Repayment Agreement with the JV Partners while transiting to self-funding IJV modes with the corporations’ partners.