Oscarline Onwuemenyi
04 March 2016, Sweetcrude, Abuja – The Managing Director of the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company, PPMC, Mrs Esther Nnamdi-Ogbue, has assured Nigerians that the current scarcity of petrol across the country would end by the weekend.
Nnamdi-Ogbue, who stated this during an update on the fuel situation in Abuja, said the PPMC has already initiated measures to ensure that the situation eases off by the weekend. She told reporters that eight petrol bearing vessels of about 40 metric tonnes each was being expected into the shores of the country.
This volume of supply, she noted, should be able to give the country enough stock of petrol to overcome the scarcity as it were.
Nnamdi-Ogbue added that “We share in the pain of all motorists, all Nigerians, and despite all the efforts being made, including fighting against every process being used to break the strong hold of corruption and all those engaged in sharp practices. Right now, more than 300 trucks should be arriving in Abuja and we are tracking them to ensure that they duly arrive here.”
She explained that the present scarcity was “caused when there is any issue or breach at any point in the value chain and then when the reaction did not take immediate effect, it reflects almost immediately.”
She added that “There was a sensitization of the public a few weeks ago about the probable situation. However, right now, we have about eight vessels coming in, each of which ranges between 30 to 40 thousand metric tonnes capacity and these should be more than enough to ensure sufficiency.”
The PPMC boss noted that on Wednesday alone, over 1000 trucks were loaded and trucked out by the majors and PPMC. “We have about 400 intervention trucks being used right now so that we can service marketers that we need to ensure fuel supply in their filling stations, especially in Abuja and Lagos where they consume about 60 percent of daily national consumption figures.”
“We have people trucking out (fuel) from Port Harcourt, Warri, Ogarra, Calabar as alternative sources for Lagos. So, all efforts are being made to ensure that by the weekend, all these would be a thing of the past.”
She noted that staff of the agency have also being deployed to monitor the distribution processes.
“We have our staff all over, monitoring to make sure that the volumes brought in are actually discharged. In most of the major or strategic stations, they are selling fuel twenty-four hours, which is throughout the day so that the situation is effectively brought to normalcy.
“One of the things that we are doing is that we are working alongside the oil majors and other downstream firms to collaborate in making sure that fuel queues disappear, we are working with IPMAN, the independent petroleum marketers.
“Basically, we have the supply of an entire cargo per day, a cargo consists of about 40 million litres of fuel which is the estimated national consumption volume per day in Nigeria. We are hopeful that this will soon be a thing of the past and we are making efforts to ensure that it never reoccurs,” she added.