Our Battle Against Recurrent Fuel Scarcity – PPMC Boss

The managing director, Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC), Esther Nnamdi-Ogbue, understands the challenges facing the Nigerian petroleum sector. She also knows the impact of vandalism on the economy of the nation. All these she speaks about in this live interview monitored by our correspondent, Lucky Vincent.

Excerpt:

What is your take on the current situation of scarcity?

We were at Apapa and saw the gridlock there. It was noticed that the trucks were getting in late to the filling stations as a result of the Apapa gridlock. Then we also saw that there were products in various filling stations, sometimes people sell in jerry cans. There were quite a number of people waiting on the queue for fuel and for that, I have to apologise to Nigerians for the hardship they must be going through right now and to tell them that PPMC is doing everything within its powers to ensure that these queues disappear by the weekend. That’s why we are here in Lagos with the minister of state to see the situation and make sure things are done.

What can we say is the problem?

It is multi-faceted. It has the pipelines, being the most efficient way of transporting petroleum products being vandalised, and Atlas Cove going off and on because of the vandalism and this makes it a bit less efficient because you have to truck all the products from the coastline to all parts of the country. Then you have the issue of our major marketers and independent not meeting up to their needs. PPMC is just supposed to take care of 48% by PPRA allocation, but we had to step up and we are stepping up to make sure we satisfy the country.

Since the pipelines are being vandalised, is there any other alternative apart from trucking?

Right now, there is no other alternative because our rail networks have not come up; so that’s not an option. The only way you have to distribute fuel nationwide is by trucking.

What about using badges to move them on the waterways?

That’s why we actually moved, not only in the Apapa area, we’ve moved Warri; we have a major artery through Warri. We actually have an artery through Oghara. Oghara is one day journey to Abuja. It is a faster mode from Lagos instead of going through the gridlocks. Then we have Port Harcourt and Calabar. The coastline is being utilised at this time.

What assurances do we have that there would be fuel during the Christmas celebration?

What we’ve done to meet this immediate problem is that we are bringing in 26 cargoes of 30,000 metric tonnes and this equates to about a billion litres for this December so that all Nigerians have the assurance that ‘if I go to a filling station, I will see fuel’. I spoke with someone on the radio the other day and he told me the horrible experiences he passed through. The intention of the PPMC is to ensure that this year would be a different year and that’s why we set personal targets for ourselves; soon, all the queues in our filling stations would disappear. Two of the cargoes have already berth and we are expecting four this week alone just to make sure it does not only take care of the PPMC, but the whole nation. Thank God with the approval of the supplementary budget. Hopefully, they (the major and independent marketers) can do their own share.

And you have the problem of transporting the product?

That’s where we have to work with our operations and to work with all our agencies because what we have done is to divide the nation into about six regions. And we have specific targets to each area.

There is the belief that this lock jam is because of too many middle men. How true is this?

We talk to marketers and we hear unofficially that they have to buy products at higher rate than the depot prices. We’ve gone to the security agents because if you don’t have evidence, you can’t build up a case. We are working in the depot to gather evidence so that we can frustrate one or two people, hold them responsible for the economic crime that is being perpetrated. The depot price is N77.66 for PMS (petrol) and if you sell above that, that means you are distorting the economy and that is an economic crime which we won’t sit back and take. We have laws to defend it.

What are the future plans being put in place?

What we’ve done and still are doing is to make sure we have strategic reserves in the country. In the past, we had marine storage of products and to get them on land has always been a challenge. Now we are having depots and storages across the country so that when we have issues such as these, we are able to massively intervene almost immediately. We have the JTF and the pipelines are being vandalised.

That means there is something we are not doing right. And so we decided to look at alternatives, let’s call in the private investors who can actually maintain and protect those pipelines. There’s so much technology available, you have the drones, you have the censors and then you have the police so that once you discover the interventions of people trying to tamper with the pipelines, then the military which the president has approved, should work with us.

When the minister of state for petroleum came on board, some contracts for the protection of pipelines were dissolved. Was it necessary to have done that then because the situation escalated almost immediately?

These contracts expired and were not renewed. What has happened now shows that there are some forms of sabotage. There’s no explanation that come from all the security–the armed forces, the police and others protecting these pipelines–yet the pipelines are being vandalised almost consistently every day. We should take the pipelines as national assets which they have always been. PPMC has been the one having to take care of the pipelines. The whole nation should be interested in what happens to them. We have taken the queue.

What are the things that can be done to stop people from carrying out unethical practices in the sector?

PPMC has a peculiar problem. When anything happens in the downstream, PPMC is called for everything. Even when an issue relates to DPR which does the monitoring, PPMC is called. That’s why we are working very closely with DPR. We have the Petroleum Equalisation Fund that has some software that tracks the trucks. However, what we need is real time so that once a truck diverts, you can see it from your ipad. DPR has said it would do its best on close monitoring because once you have close monitoring of trucks, diversion would be minimised.

When these trucks pick products, do they tell you where they are taken the products to?

Yes, they sign out. When you are picking up the products, we want to know you exact destination. If you are going up North, for instance, you have to go through Suleja. In Suleja, we get a report you have arrived there. Sometimes you get funny reports. There’s one incident where a truck came in with water in Suleja. We have a laboratory in Suleja that actually does random tests of products coming in. It could be as a result of diversion or sometimes, when they have problems with the compartments, they say they have to fill with water so that the products don’t get lost. But it was quite curious when it was a whole tanker. So we are looking into that. Every depot has lab.

The major concern is that some people have the product and are hoarding. Is anyone being prosecuted in any way?

Yes, we now have security agents who are trained to gather evidence. We have the EFCC working with us as well. They are the ones to prosecute those who are being caught.

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