The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and its downstream subsidiary, Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC) have said that normalcy is being restored to the supply and distribution of premium motor spirit otherwise called petrol across the country.
The Managing Director of PPMC, Prince Haruna Momoh, made this submission on Tuesday before the Senate Committee on Petroleum Downstream in Abuja.
Momoh said that with respect to fuel situation in the country, NNPC/PPMC and other marketers were jointly supplying fuel to the market, saying: “The long queues are beginning to disappear from most of the filling stations across the states.”
He said: “I will like to put on record that based on the forty (40) million litres national daily consumption, the NNPC/ PPMC is responsible for fifty (50%) percent of the allocation from the Petroleum Products and Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, and other marketers are responsible for the other 50 percent.
“The NNPC/PPMC as the supplier of last resort ensured that when marketers withdrew from supplying, the country was sustained with the fifty percent supplied from the inland and marine strategic reserves.”
He explained that the NNPC/PPMC had to dip into its strategic reserves to keep the country wet with the product revealing that the country has fourteen (14) days sufficiency and with the involvement of marketers in the importation of fuel, the strategic reserve would be restocked back to thirty days sufficiency by month end.
The PPMC MD informed that the NNPC/ PPMC maintains inland and marine strategic reserves so as to ensure energy sufficiency in line with the Corporation’s mandate.
Momoh said that based on the information made available to him by the Major Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) and the Independent Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) lack of subsidy payment was the reason why they suspended importation of petroleum products to the country.
He said with the payment of subsidy claims for third and fourth quarters of 2013 to marketers running to N41 billion, the marketers had increased supply to the market.
Source: National Mirror
