The
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), major oil marketers and
depot owners have set out to replenish the national strategic fuel
stock that was depleted during the last nationwide scarcity that lasted
more than two months.
The
NNPC ‘War Room’ ad-hoc group created by the management of the company
to tackle the scarcity says it is coordinating the provision of volumes
of premium motor spirits (Petrol) to filling stations throughout the
country while it is filling the strategic stock.
“The
strategy is to provide extra volume of products so that the balance
could be channelled towards building the national strategic stock which
was depleted at the height of the fuel supply/ distribution challenge,”
said Farouk Ahmed, a member of the group who doubles as the Executive
Director, Commercial of the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company
(PPMC), a subsidiary of the NNPC.
“Now
we are moving beyond just eliminating the fuel queues to a point where
we can build up inventory to act as quick intervention in case of line
breaks or unexpected shortfalls. The idea is to use some of our depots
like Ilorin, Kaduna, Suleja and Port Harcourt to build up stocks.”
In
line with this new strategy, a record quantity of 10,142 trucks, the
equivalent of about 334.6 million litres of fuel, has been distributed
nationwide within the last one week according to the NNPC. This figure
translates to a daily average distribution of about 1,448 trucks or
47.7million litres of PMS, he explained.
National average surpassed
Mr.
Ahmed said the War Room has exceeded its average national weekly target
of 1300 trucks (per day), or 42.9 million litres with an additional
4.8million litres. This new daily average distribution also surpasses
the daily national fuel consumption volume which stands at 33million
litres.
A
breakdown of the War Room’s weekly loading chart for the period
indicates a haul of 131.4 million litres of fuel in 3,982 trucks were
distributed nationwide last weekend.
The NNPC War Room was inaugurated on January 29 by Mohammed Sanusi Barkindo, the NNPC’s Group Managing Director.
The
body was charged with ending the intractable fuel supply and
distribution challenges at the time in 72 hours. Within 48 hours of its
existence appreciable respite returned and the queues at filling
stations began to ease, particularly in the major cities nationwide.
The
group, whose membership is drawn from staff across the NNPC’s fuel
supply chain from marine to retail, is headed Austen Oniwon, Group
Executive Director (GED), Refineries and Petro-Chemicals, and Aminu
Baba-Kusa, GED Commercial and Investment.
Operators
in the industry say they are happy with the current distribution of
petroleum products and are optimistic the scarcity issue will be
corrected.
Tokunbo
Korodo, the Lagos Zone chairperson of the National Union of Petroleum
and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) said, “I believe they have the
capacity and capability to do it if they so decide because with the
current status of distribution, it’s quite commendable. So if they can
maintain this tempo, we will not be talking of scarcity again.”
The NUPENG leader implored all parties to cooperate to ensure that the current fuel distribution level is sustained.
“Let the major oil marketers complement the efforts of the NNPC by bring in more fuel into country, Mr. Korodo said.
“They
should not allow only NNPC to the job, if there’s any money to be
settled between the two parties, the earlier the better so that
Nigerians will not suffer.”
Leave a Reply