The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has announced the end of the fuel crisis that plagued the country for months.
In a statement in Abuja, Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Dr. Maikanti Baru, said the corporation has also activated measures to ensure that the prevailing stability in the supply and distribution of petroleum products was sustained across the country.
Speaking at a ceremony to wind down the activities of the Fuel Supply War Room established three months ago, Baru, stated that the NNPC would imbibe the lessons garnered from the exercise to improve on its ability to discharge its responsibility as a supplier of last resort.
He said the War Room had provided the NNPC with a platform for real-time monitoring, information sharing, and process debottlenecking as well as accelerated decision-making by top management.
He stressed that the informed decisions that had been taken along the line constituted a new pool of experiences and lessons learnt, deployable towards improving NNPC Supply and Distribution operations going forward.
He said, “After months of consistent efforts, coupled with the doggedness of the War Room lieutenants, who spent days and nights, often sacrificing weekends and public holidays, we were able to take far-reaching actions and arrive at impactful decisions that have turned around the situation from misery to victory.”
Baru, however, noted that as the supplier of last resort, NNPC would always ensure petroleum products availability nationwide.
According to him, the NNPC would maintain an eagle eye on the daily Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), or petrol evacuation figures from depots across the nation, and where necessary engage the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) through existing Joint Monitoring Team.
The NNPC Fuel Supply War Room was inaugurated on 4th December, 2017 as a Rapid Response Committee to manage the then fuel supply and distribution hiccups that arose at the period.
It consisted of some of the best hands within the NNPC Supply and Distribution community, namely, Crude Oil Marketing Division, Petroleum Products Marketing Company, Nigerian Pipelines and Storage Company, NNPC Shipping, NNPC Retail Limited, Group Human Resources, the Refineries and Group Security Department as well as the Public Affairs Division.
Part of the War Room tentacles were the 18 special depot managers and MOMAN coordinators deployed to strategic NNPC and Throughput depots, with a view to complementing the existing depot leadership and enhancing transparency and operational efficiency.