The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) says it currently has about one billion litres of premium motor spirit (PMS) in stock which would serve the country for the next 24 days.
Joseph Dawha, group managing director (GMD) of the corporation, disclosed this on Monday at the public hearing of the Senate committees on Petroleum Resources (upstream and downstream) on the lingering fuel scarcity in the country.
Recall that the Federal Government and oil marketers had signed an agreement to end the fuel crisis, just as the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas workers (NUPENG) and Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association (PENGASSAN) suspended their industrial actions same day. The NUPENG and PENGASSAN strikes were called off following the intervention of NNPC GMD, Joseph Dawha.
According to him, his last engagement with the unions was about 3:50am on Monday, pointing out that their industrial actions had affected gas supply to some power plants.
The Nigerian economy was brought to a standstill by fuel shortages, occasioned by a row between the outgoing government and importers and complicated by strikes by petrol tanker drivers and oil and gas workers.
Despite being Africa’s biggest oil producer, petroleum products have to be imported to Nigeria due to inability of the nation’s domestic refineries to function at optimum capacities.
But allaying the fears of Nigerians, Dawha stressed that there is sufficient fuel to serve the country for over three weeks.
