The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on Friday stated it had taken measures to recover 130 million litres of petrol from two downstream oil operators over operational infraction.
The NNPC Chief Operating Officer, Downstream, Mr Henry Ikem-Obih, made this recognized in Abuja in an announcement by Mr Ndu Ughamadu, NNPC Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division.
Ikem-Obih stated that the 130 million litres could be recovered from amenities of two indigenous operators, MRS Limited and Capital Oil & Gas Limited.
He stated that over 100 million litres of petrol saved on the Capital Oil & Gas depot and over 30 million litres in MRS Limited depot, all in Apapa space of Lagos, weren’t discovered when wanted.
“We instructed the Nigerian Products Marketing Company (NPMC), a subsidiary of NNPC, to ship further vehicles to these places to transfer merchandise for distribution aimed toward assembly a provide shortfall we found out there.
“After days of not having the ability to entry the terminals, we had to take a call as NNPC Management, to invite auditors and inspectors to go and do a bodily test on the inventories.
“The go to revealed that there was no molecule of product for the NNPC to evacuate,’’ he stated.
Ikem-Obih stated the infraction by the 2 downstream corporations was a transparent violation of current contract, which prohibited the companies from tampering with the volumes of their custody with out specific permission of the company
He stated, “armed with this data we promptly known as them in to clarify to us what occurred to our product of their custody.
“After the assembly with them, we issued them letters and instructed them in clear phrases to do both of two issues.
“One, return to us the total quantity of what was saved of their depots litre-for-litre or pay the total worth of the merchandise they took with out our approval.’’
He stated that NNPC alerted the Directorate of State Service (DSS), the Economic Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) and related committees of National Assembly with oversight operate on the company’s downstream operation to assist recover the belongings.
Ikem-Obih stated that this was opposite to the insinuation that NNPC saved mute over the infraction till the Senate uncovered it.
“So far, MRS has totally complied by returning the 30 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) that it expropriated.
“But, now we have not achieved a lot progress with Capital Oil & Gas which has but to return 82 million litres of petrol valued at N11 billion, out of over 100 million litres which it took,’’ he disclosed.
He acknowledged that NNPC had arrange two committees to consider the roles performed by a few of its workers within the unlawful evacuation of the merchandise.
He added that one of many committees was mandated to evaluation the company’s complete throughput coverage so as to align it with international greatest practices.
According to the COO, as a part of efforts to forestall a repeat of comparable incidence, a disciplinary committee is already investigating the extent of involvement of workers with a view to making use of acceptable sanctions.
“The second committee,’’ he stated, “is reviewing the company’s coverage and pointers for partaking in throughput preparations with third events to set up management measures that may assist avert the same incident sooner or later’’.
On the affect of the product diversion on the provision chain, he stated that the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Dr Maikanti Baru, had authorised a rise in importation of petrol to make up for the shortfall.
