NNPC admits kerosene distribution problem as consumers groan

Emerging from a closed-door meeting between the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) on the drive to ‘restore sanity’ in the supply and distribution of kerosene nationwide, Austeen Oniwon, the group managing director (GMD) of NNPC, has admitted to a distribution lax.
Oniwon said, “We believe that we had a distribution network problem which we are going to address and a supply problem which we have addressed. We observe that some of the kerosene that we send to the affiliates does not get to consumers as we wanted it to be.”
A visibly worried Oniwon also explained that as a result of the laxity, NNPC has broken relations with some of its affiliates due to the continued diversion of kerosene product.
According to the NNPC GMD, “We have decided to channel the kerosene first and foremost to the NNPC mega stations, while we held sessions with those affiliate stations and those people that agreed to do the business the way we wanted it to be done, we are sending kerosene to them and those people that have refused to do the business according to the standard that we want to set, we are reviewing our relationship with them. So, maybe very soon, we would start seeing some of those stations changing from NNPC logos to their own logos, because they failed or refused to maintain our standards.”
The scarcity and the sky rocketing price of household kerosene have made Nigerians to groan, even as the price of the product hovers between N195 and the N300. Oniwon noted that NNPC would deliver kerosene through MOMAN via its Apapa jetty from where it will then be moved by the association to the various retail outlets.
“As of today, we have kerosene sufficient to last this nation forty days, so we have forty days sufficiency, and as the refineries continue to produce, we would try to meet the consumption, and if it is not sufficient to meet the daily consumption, then we would bring in additional kerosene to ensure that we maintain this stock level in the nation. NNPC has product which we have brought into the country to supplement what is coming from the refineries and we have all agreed that this product will be channeled properly through the marketers,” Oniwon informed.
Meanwhile, both MOMAN and NNPC have assured Nigerians that within the next ten days, household kerosene would become available because the Corporation currently has enough in its stock to last forty days.
Femi Olawore, MOMAN executive secretary, said, “We have been given the assurance that we would get the product in large quantity and we as major marketers, have the capacity to distribute this product effectively nationwide. We would like to assure you that we would start immediately. We have done this in the past and we promise to do this again.”

 Sola Bello & Ameto Akpe, Abuja