These, certainly are not the best of times for MRS, Emadeb, Oando and Duke Oil as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) has listed them as the companies that brought adulterated Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) into the country.
NNPC’s Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Mele Kyari revealed this on Wednesday, February 9th, 2022 in Abuja.
Kyari said; “On January 20, 2022, NNPC received a report from our 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 (4) PMS cargoes imported by the following DSDP suppliers namely:
“Importer vessel name load port, 1. MRS MT Bow Pioneer LITASCO Terminal, Antwerp-Belgium; 2. Emadeb/Hyde/AY Maikifi/Brittania-U Consortium MT Tom Hilde; 3. Oando MT Elka Apollon; 4. Duke Oil MT Nord Gainer.”
“Cargoes quality certificates issued at load port (Antwerp-Belgium) by AmSpec Belgium indicated that the gasoline complied with Nigerian specification.”
“NNPC quality inspectors including GMO, SGS, GeoChem and G&G conducted tests before discharge also showed that the gasoline met Nigerian specification.”
“As a standard practice for all PMS import to Nigeria, the cargoes were equally certified by inspection agent appointed by the Nigeria 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 per cent methanol content and therefore the additive was not detected by our quality inspectors.”
“In order to prevent the distribution of the petrol, NNPC 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.”
Recall that the contaminated petrol had damaged a large number of the citizen’s vehicles as well as vehicles belonging to companies.
