13 vessels discharging petroleum products – NNPC

Dr. Maikanti Baru, Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) says about 13 vessels are presently discharging petroleum products at various seaports across the country.

Baru disclosed this on Sunday in Abuja while briefing newsmen and reassured of adequate supply of products in the country.

He said that the vessels discharging had an average of 650 million litres adding that three more vessels were expected to berth before the end of the week.

He said that federal government had instructed the Navy, NIMASSA , Customs and all stakeholders to expedite clearance and anchorage services to facilitate speedy products transfers to various depots.

He noted that with the efforts on ground, queues were expected to disappear in couple of days.

He said the NNPC had instructed a 24 hours loading and sales operations at all its depots and Mega stations and also advised major marketers to carry out 24 hours operations too.

“In addition to regular supply circle, NNPC has programmed the delivery of additional 300 million litres in December 2017 and January 2018 to beef up national reserve to 45 million litres per day,’’ he said.

According to him, the delivery is well above the normal consumption requirement of between 27 to 28 million litres per day.

The GMD noted that over the last two weeks, the national truck out capacity had been beefed up to an average of 1,500 trucks, translated to 52 million litres per day.

This, he said was also much higher than the normal consumption of 850 trucks per day across the various depots in the country.

“This is coming at a time when NNPC is the sole supplier of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) known as petrol as a result of the inability of oil marketing  companies  to import due to landing cost and exchange rate,’’ he added.

Baru said that the NNPC had activated the ‘Fuel war Room ‘to coordinate all intervention activities for supply and distribution of the PMS nationwide.

He said that the team in the fuel war room includes NNPC, DPR, PPPRA and PEF with the support of the security agencies.

The group, he said, will work round the clock to ensure speedy resolution of the current situation.

“DPR, PEF and PPPRA have scaled up monitoring activities to ensure seamless and compliant loading and dispensing of PMS nationwide  and to specifically ensure deliveries to designate stations and sale at the approved retail price of N145 per litre,’’ he said.

Commenting on contributions of the nation’s refineries, he said that Kaduna and Port Harcourt Refineries have contributed in the quantity of products supply.

He said Kaduna supplied one million litres daily and in all contributed about 16 million litres while Port Harcourt 2.8 million daily and 45 million litres in total.

He said that he appreciated all stakeholders and urged Nigerian to stop patronizing black marketers as adequate products were available to serve all.

Commenting on allegation by marketers that government wants to increase the pump price due to the high Landing cost, he said such was false.

He said that at present, the landing cost of the product is N171 per litre and NNPC sells to marketers at N133.28k.

“You can see that they still have profit. We are advising marketers to shun profiteering and stop suffering Nigerians.

“Government has no plan to increase the pump price, every effort now is to ensure that we handle all the challenges with distribution to avoid the repeat of this kind of situation,’’ he said

Also, Alhaji Abba Abdu Misua, Zonal Operation Controller, DPR, Abuja said the resources had been given directives to dispense products of any station that defaulted instead of sealing it.