The country will not experience fuel queues this end of year festive season, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has assured the citizens.
It said on Tuesday that the Petroleum Products Marketing Company had been directed to sustain steady petrol supply during and beyond the Christmas and New Year festive season, which usually witness supply hiccups.
The Group Managing Director, NNPC, Maikanti Baru, made the commitment during the inauguration of the board of directors of the PPMC, a subsidiary of the corporation.
He was quoted in a statement issued in Abuja by the corporation’s spokesperson, Ndu Ughamadu, as saying, “The festive season is fast approaching, a period when almost always, people expect queues to happen. If last year you had a queue-free festive season, we want this year’s to be a season where fuel station attendants will be inviting motorists to their stands for fuelling.”
Baru charged the PPMC management to strategically cut down the company’s operating cost so as to add value to the corporation, adding that the petroleum marketing firm was not expected to make losses.
The Chief Operating Officer, Downstream, and alternate Chairman of the Board, PPMC, Ikem Obi, said the country would never return to the era of products scarcity.
The Managing Director, PPMC, Umar Ajiya, said the resuscitation of depots in parts of the country had contributed to the steady supply of products nationwide.
He stated that the company would be placed on the part of profitability and noted that other petroleum products would be equally made available alongside petrol.
The PPMC is one of the three new firms that emerged from the old Pipelines and Products Marketing Company after the reorganisation of the NNPC and is mainly saddled with marketing of petroleum products.
The other two companies are the Nigerian Pipeline and Storage Company and Marine Logistics.
While the NPSC is charged with the responsibility of managing storage and distribution assets of the NNPC, Marine Logistics executes petroleum products’ haulage for the corporation.
