The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) says it is set to fully recover over 130 million litres of premium motor spirit, otherwise known as petrol, stored in the facilities of two indigenous downstream operators.
Addressing a news conference in Abuja, the Chief Operating Officer, downstream of the corporation, Mr Henry Ikem-Obih said the infraction was discovered earlier in the year when the corporation had need to access the product stored in the two depots belonging to the companies in Apapa, Lagos state.
“We instructed the Nigerian Products Marketing Company (NPMC) a subsidiary of NNPC, to send additional trucks to those locations to move products for distribution aimed at meeting a supply shortfall we discovered in the market, but after days of not being able to access the terminals we had to take a decision as NNPC management to invite auditors and inspectors to go and do a physical check on the inventories,” he said.
Ikem-Obih said the product is part of 11 billion Naira worth of missing NNPC fuel.
He further disclosed that the company had set up two committees to evaluate the roles played by some of its staff in the illegal product evacuation.