Mele Kyari, group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, says the contaminated petrol products were imported by suppliers under the Direct Sales Direct Purchase (DSDP) arrangement.
The DSDP arrangement is a strategy by the NNPC to ensure a sustained supply of petroleum products.
According to Kyari, the suppliers are MRS, Oando, Duke Oil and Emadeb Consortium.
Kyari, speaking at a press conference in Abuja, said NNPC, on 20 January 2022, received a report from its quality inspector on the presence of emulsion particles in PMS cargoes shipped to Nigeria from Antwerp-Belgium.
“NNPC investigation revealed the presence of methanol in four PMS cargoes imported by DSDP suppliers including MRS, Oando, Duke Oil, and Emadeb/Hyde/AY Maikifi/Brittania-U Consortium,” Kyari said.
He noted that cargoes quality certificates issued at load port (Antwerp- Belgium) by AmSpec Belgium indicated that the gasoline complied with Nigerian Specification.
According to him, tests conducted by NNPC’s quality inspectors including GMO, SGS, GeoChem and G&G before discharge also showed that the gasoline met Nigerian specifications.
But none of the tests conducted included a check to ascertain the percentage of methanol in the product before release.
“As a standard practice for all PMS import to Nigeria, the cargoes were equally certified by inspection agent appointed by the Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority has met Nigerian specification.
“It is important to note that the usual quality inspection protocol employed in both the load port in Belgium and our discharge ports in Nigeria do not include the test for Percent methanol content and therefore the additive was not detected by our quality inspectors,” Kyari said.
This comes nearly 24 hours after MRS accused NNPC of importing the adulterated product in a statement.
“Due to the current subsidy regime, NNPC is the sole importer of all PMS in Nigeria. Consequently, NNPC, through their trading arm Duke Oil, supplied a cargo of PMS purchased from international trader Litasco and delivered it with the Motor Tanker (MT), Nord Gainer,” MRS said in the statement.
Nigerians have been finding it difficult getting fuel since Monday after NNPC withdrew the product from the market. This has led to long queues at filling stations.
Some Nigerians who used the product in their vehicles before the withdrawal had their engines affected.
Kyari said to prevent the distribution of the petrol, NNPC has ordered the quarantine of all un-evacuated volumes and the holding back of all the affected products in transit (both truck and marine).
“All defaulting suppliers have been put on notice for remedial actions and NNPC will work with the authority to take further necessary actions in line with subsisting regulations,” he said while reassuring Nigerians that they are currently sourcing additional cargoes to ensure product sufficiency. (The Cable)
