NNPC after two indigenous companies over ‘missing’ 130million litres of petrol

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corportation (NNPC), has said that it has taken measures to recover 130million litres of petrol, that were lost from two downstream oil operators over operational infraction.

This was contained in a statement released on Friday by the NNPC Chief Operating Officer, Downstream, Mr Henry Ikem-Obih, on behalf of Mr Ndu Ughamadu, NNPC Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division.

Ikem-Obih said that the 130million litres would be recovered from two indigenous operators, MRS Limited and Capital Oil & Gas Limited.
He also explained that over 100million litres of petrol stored at the Capital Oil & Gas depot and over 30million litres in MRS Limited depot, 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.
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.”