EKO NEWS
Lagosians To Breathe Sigh Of Relief As NNPC Takes Delivery of 300 Million Litres Of Petrol
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) has imported and taken delivery of 300 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit to close the supply gap created in the country by the withdrawal of the wrong petrol grade.
Farouk Ahmed, the chief executive officer of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, said this on Wednesday in Lagos.
Ahmed said the 300 million litres arrived through six vessels ordered by the NNPC and had arrived the country had arrived in the country.
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He said with the delivery of the 300 million litres of petrol, the fuel queues being witnesses in the country will disappear by Thursday.
He said, “Today, I am happy to say that loading has been going on in most of the depots because we have been able to identify, isolate and quarantine the limited amount of gasoline that was affected by the methanol volume that was discovered.
Fuel queues
“We have vessels that have arrived in the country recently. At least six arrived in the last few days ordered by the NNPC, carrying a total volume of close to 300 million litres, just to close the gap created by those vessels we have withdrawn from the system.”
Ahmed said there is a 9,000MT vessel that is being discharged at Apapa Port to major marketers including OVH, TotalEnergies, 11 Plc, Conoil and Ardova Plc.
He explained that as soon as the vessels complete discharging and start pushing products to oil marketers, the fuel queues in Lagos will disappear by Friday.
“So, once these vessels complete discharging and start pushing the products to marketers, I believe Lagos will be cleared by Friday. We have got that assurance from the marketers.
“Also, most of these vessels will also be providing volumes to most of the members of the key members of DAPPMAN,” Ahmed added.
On the volume of petrol in store, he said that the country currently has petrol that can last for 20 days.
“Our ideal days of sufficiency is 30 but because of the concern that made us withdraw the vessels which created the gap in our 30 days sufficiency.
“Again, with aggressive importation by the NNPC, this will be closed in a few days, according to the data we got from the NNPC’s import programme.
“Loading is also ongoing in most of the depots that have confirmed spec products; so, there is no need for panic. Hopefully, by tomorrow, Lagos will be cleared,” he added.
The Authority had on Tuesday said that some limited quantity of Premium Motor Spirit, commonly known as Petrol, with methanol quantities above Nigeria’s specification were discovered in the supply chain.
The petrol, which was imported into the country was to be distributed to oil marketers for onward sale to Nigerians.
But the product contained some quantity of methanol which is not suitable for the Nigerian market.
Immediately the discovery was made, the NNPC quickly stopped oil marketers from distributing the petrol.
This newspaper had reported that while the volume of imported petrol which contained methanol are not toxic, the NNPC quickly intervened by ensuring that they do not get to the filling stations.
In achieving this, the NNPC made sure that all the cargoes that were suspected to have methanol were quarantined.
Similarly, those cargoes that have been discharged were also quarantined, while all the trucks that have left the depots were tracked and intercepted.
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