NNPC says it’s satisfied with effort as fuel scarcity bites harder

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The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Ltd. has expressed satisfaction with the level of compliance by petroleum products depots with the directive to extend hours of operation, to end the lingering petrol scarcity.

Mr Isiyaku Abdullahi, Managing Director, Pipelines Products Marketing Company Ltd.(PPMC), made this known during a monitoring visit to some petroleum products depots on Saturday in Lagos.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the depots visited include TotalEnergies Depot Apapa and Pinnacle Depot in Lekki Free Zone, Ibeju Lekki.

Abdullahi said the visit was to ensure that depots were complying with the directive by Mr Mele Kyari, Group Managing Director, NNPC Ltd.

“We are here to appreciate the good job all the stakeholders are doing in this country in order to get back to normalcy in respect to the fuel queues that we noticed across the country, especially in Lagos, Abuja and some other major cities.

“What we are trying to do is to ensure that there is compliance to the GMD’s directive that all our facilities, both depots and select retail outlets are working 24/7, taking security and safety into consideration.

“We are ensuring that we move products from marine everyday, at least a 100 million litres, so that when it comes to land we will be able to push it within and across the country.

“By the special grace of God, we want to achieve that so that we bring normalcy and ease the pains that Nigerians have undergone for these few periods.

“What we saw in the depots shows compliance with the directive.”

He said TotalEnergies for instance had 9.5 million litres and was supported this week by the NNPC with another 13 million litres.

According to him, about 70 million litres was also made available to Pinnacle Depot which is one of the largest loading bays in the country.

Abdullahi said another cargo with 80 million litres justed birthed with about 2,000 trucks on standby to distribute the products across the country.

“We want to assure Nigerians that we are working round the clock to ensure stability in the distribution of Premium Motor Spirit.

“From what we saw today, Lagos is getting better and so also is Abuja, ” he said.

Also, Mr Peter Mbah, Managing Director, Pinnacle Oil and Gas Ltd., said the facility had the ability to receive huge supplies at a time and could discharge over a 100 million litres of petroleum products within 72 hours.

Mbah said: “Last week we did a volume of over 70 million litres and this week we are even poised to do more than that.

“The idea is for us to send a very strong message to the general public that there is no reason for panic buying because the supply is coming.

” In a few hours we are going to receive a supply of 80 million litres and we are able to truck out 20 million litres daily which is distributed across the retail outlets, so there is no reason to panic.”

On his part, Mr Ernest Umunna, Site Manager, TotalEnergies, Apapa Depot, said product supply to the company has been stable.

“We have been mandated by our head office to do at least 80 trucks daily which is about 2.5 to 3 million litres, “he added.

Scarcity of petrol has lingered for weeks across the country, causing severe hardship to Nigerians who spend long hours in filling stations struggling to get fuel for their vehicles and generators.