… COMPANY CONSIDERS TRACKING OF TRUCKS TO PREVENT FUEL DIVERSION
The NNPC limited has said that it has distributed a total of 387.59milion Litres of PMS in one week from February 14 to 20.
This was contained in the weekly report on details of how the NNPC distributed Premium Motor Spirit to Nigerians in the week under review.
The NNPC leadership described the period (February 14-20) as the most challenging time for motorists because of the supply gap created by the importation of methanol-contaminated fuel into the country.
The report stated that the product was evacuated from the depot and distributed to Nigerians through retail filling stations within one week covering February 14 to 20.
According to the company, the release of the 387.59 million litres by the NNPC to Nigerians, represents an average daily distribution of 55.4 million litres.
The figures were released by the NNPC on Wednesday through its verified Twitter account.
“The report stated that “as part of its strategy to restock, the NNPC had assured that over 2.3 billion liters of PMS had been scheduled for delivery before the end of February 2022.”
This, the NNPC stated, would restore the sufficiency level above the national target of 30 days.
In spite of the supply of the large quantity of fuel to the country, the queues have refused to disappear,
The situation has fueled serious speculation of fuel diversion and sharp practices by marketers.
A source who confided in our correspondent said that the NNPC Limited is considering the proactive measure of tracking trucks as a response to possible large scale fuel diversion.
A breakdown of the NNPC weekly national evacuation report showed that 80 per cent of all the evacuations took place at the top 20 high loading depots.
It stated that the remaining 20 per cent of the evacuation took place at the other loading depots.
According to the report, the top 20 high loading depots that were used to evacuate the PMS are Pinnacle-Lekki which evacuated the highest volume of 70.8 million litres, NIPCO (22.6 million litres), AITEO (22.3 million litres), Swift (16 million litres), 11 PLC (15.9 million litres), Bovas Bulk (15 million litres) and Frado (14.6 million litres).
The NNPC Group Managing director explained that there was also Keonamex which evacuated PMS of 13.7 million litres, MRS Ltd (11.9 million litres), Rainoil (11.6 million litres), AYM Shafa (11.2 million litres), TSL (11.2 million litres), Rainoil Lagos (11.2 million litres), and Matrix (10 million litres).
The rest are Conoil Lagos which distributed 9.7 million litres of petrol, AA Rano (8.8 million litres), Bluefin (8.4 million litres), HOGL (8.2 million litres) Ibafon Calabar (8 million litres) and Mainland (7.5 million litres).
According to him, the supply of the 387.59 million litres by the NNPC to Nigerians was responsible for the disappearance of fuel queues last weekend in Lagos, Abuja and other states of the federation.
“Filling stations that had been shut for over a week due to supply gap, eventually opened for operations last Sunday while retail outlets in the satellite towns of Abuja such as Bwari, Lugbe, Kubwa, Zuba, Kuje and others that had experienced product shortage were seen dispensing petrol to motorists last Sunday.
It was stated that the NNPC intervened by ensuring that the methanol blend petrol did not get to the filling stations.
“It was further stated that the NNPC made sure that all the cargoes that were suspected to have methanol were quickly quarantined.”
Similarly, those cargoes that have been discharged were also quarantined, while all the trucks that have left the depots were tracked and intercepted.
He maintained that the NNPC also restocked the depot with cleaner fuels and intensified efforts at increasing the supply of petrol into the market to bridge any unforeseen supply gap.