By Fola James
The Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), Abdullahi Mahmud Gaya has assured Nigerians that his committee will deal with companies who imported methanol-blended Premium Motor Spirit, PMS into the country. The lawmaker spoke as the petrol scarcity in the country continues to bite with no end in sight to the problem. Long queues for fuel persist in major cities across the country despite government’s assurance of availability of the product.
The NNPC said on Wednesday that it has ordered for 2.1 litres that will last the country for over a month, warning Nigerians against panic buying. Apart from the struggle by motorists to get the product, petrol marketers have also jerked up the price from N162 per litre. For instance, a litre of petrol was said to have been sold for as much as N1000 in some places in Abuja, the nation’s capital on Wednesday.
Gaya was responding to a question from one of the Committee members on the calls by well meaning Nigerians that the companies responsible for importing adulterated petrol into the country must be sanctioned.
He spoke during an engagement with Management of the NNPC organised by the Committee on the current fuel situation in the country.
Recall that the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC Mele Kyari said in a statement by the company’s spokesman Garba Deen Muhammad that MRS, Oando, Duke Oil and a consortium of consisting Emadeb/Hyde/AY Maikifi/Brittania-U were responsible for bringing in the fuel.
But Oando and MRS have however denied the allegation, even as controversy lingers as to whether the NNPC is still the sole importer of petrol into the country as being widely believed by Nigerians.
Meanwhile, Kyari has explained the lawmakers that the fule scarcity situation is as a result of the discovery of methanol in the PMS cargoes shipped to Nigeria under the subsisting commercial contract operated by NNPC and its partners.
According to him, the reason why tests did not reveal methanol presence was because Nigeria’s specifications do not include methanol.
Kyari told the committee that, “we are a law-abiding company. There is no way we could have known about the methanol presence. The only way we could have known about it is if our suppliers, in good faith, made the disclosure to us. In this particular instance, the discovery was made by our inspection agents who noticed the emulsification at the filling stations and brought it to our attention.
“Subsequent investigation revealed that the four cargoes which are all from the same source also contained methanol-blended PMS”.
He said NNPC then moved swiftly to trace all the affected products and quarantine same.
While assuring the Committee and Nigerians that measures have been put in place to accelerate fuel supply and distribution in the country, the NNPC CEO said the company had placed significant orders of over 2.1billion liters of methanol-free PMS to ensure the queues vanish in few days.
He pledged that NNPC would co-operate with the Committee and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) to get to the root of the matter.
The NNPC chief executive also expressed deep empathy with Nigerians on the current situation and assured that adequate measures have been put in place to maintain supply sufficiency and prevent future occurrence.
