The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)
on Friday said 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 known in Abuja in
a statement by Mr Ndu Ughamadu, NNPC Group General Manager, Group Public
Affairs Division.
Ikem-Obih said that the
130 million litres would be recovered from facilities of two indigenous
operators, MRS Limited and Capital Oil & Gas Limited.
He said that over 100
million litres of petrol stored at the Capital Oil & Gas depot and over 30
million litres in MRS Limited depot, all in Apapa area of Lagos, were not found
when needed.
“We instructed the
Nigerian Products Marketing Company (NPMC), a subsidiary of NNPC, to send
additional trucks to those locations to move products for distribution aimed at
meeting a supply shortfall we discovered in the market.
“After days of not
being able to access the terminals, we had to take a decision as NNPC
Management, to invite auditors and inspectors to go and do a physical check on
the inventories.
“The visit revealed
that there was no molecule of product for the NNPC to evacuate,’’ he said.
Ikem-Obih said the
infraction by the two downstream companies was a clear violation of existing
contract, which prohibited the firms from tampering with the volumes in their
custody without express permission of the corporation
He said, “armed with
this information we promptly called them in to explain to us what happened to
our product in their custody.
“After the meeting with
them, we issued them letters and told them in clear terms to do either of two
things.
“One, return to us the
full volume of what was stored in their depots litre-for-litre or pay the full
value of the products they took without our approval.’’
He said that NNPC
alerted the Directorate of State Service (DSS), the Economic Financial Crime
Commission (EFCC) and relevant committees of National Assembly with oversight
function on the corporation’s downstream operation to help recover the assets.
Ikem-Obih said that
this was contrary to the insinuation that NNPC kept mute over the infraction
until the Senate uncovered it.
“So far, MRS has fully
complied by returning the 30 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol)
that it expropriated.
“But, we have not
achieved much progress with Capital Oil & Gas which has yet to return 82
million litres of petrol valued at N11 billion, out of over 100 million litres
which it took,’’ he disclosed.
He stated that NNPC had
set up two committees to evaluate the roles played by some of its staff in the
illegal evacuation of the products.
He added that one of
the committees was mandated to review the corporation’s entire throughput
policy in order to align it with global best practices.
According to the COO,
as part of efforts to forestall a repeat of similar occurrence, a disciplinary
committee is already investigating the level of involvement of staff with a view
to applying appropriate sanctions.
“The second
committee,’’ he said, “is reviewing the corporation’s policy and guidelines for
engaging in throughput arrangements with third parties to establish control
measures that can help avert a similar incident in the future’’.
On the impact of the
product diversion on the supply chain, he said that the Group Managing Director
of NNPC, Dr Maikanti Baru, had approved an increase in importation of petrol to
make up for the shortfall.
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