The Kaduna zonal executive of Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) has said it has discovered plots to disrupt the free flow of petroleum products in all the northern states.
There were strong indications yesterday also that President Goodluck Jonathan might soon remove the subsidy on petrol (premium motor spirit), apparently to free up funds for the implementation of the new minimum wage by state governments and rehabilitation of decaying infrastructure.
The group, which revealed the fuel supply sabbotage plot at a meeting in Minna while reviewing its activities said, “We have painfully discovered a grand design by a group of disgruntled elements who are not happy with the free flow of petroleum products in the entire northern states. We understand this disgruntled group has resorted to misinformation about allocation of petroleum products namely DPK/AGO/PMS in PPMC Kaduna.”
According to the zonal executive, the disgruntled group have been spreading falsehood against top industry executives and accusing them of unilaterally allocating products without due process.
“This misinformation is completely untrue and we are convinced it is a manifestation of a hidden plot to destabilise the free flow of petroleum products to the North,” a statement signed by the senior assistant general secretary, NUPENG/Kaduna, Comrade Adamu Song, said.
The union however, assured the public that all allocations in the depot were done by a committee comprising the depot management, IPMAN and major marketers, adding that any other allocation besides that of the committee was done by the top management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to organisations such as PHCN, the police and the military, among others.
“We are using this opportunity to tell the entire world that Kaduna depot is the only active depot in the northern part of the country and given such a situation, there will be pressure from different quarters on the management of the depot. The variances which have resulted in huge revenue losses in the depot were not a product of human errors, rather they were occasioned by obsolete equipment,” the statement added.
The group, which urged Nigerians to disregard the rumours and falsehood being peddled by the faceless people, noted that those behind the lies were trying to create unnecessary tension aimed at destabilising the ongoing free flow of petroleum products across the North.
“We would like to reiterate that our council will always work extra hard to ensure the continued availability of petroleum products to all the nooks and crannies of the country, especially the North, which is our immediate constituency,” the group said.
The group however, urged the depot management to strengthen the manpower needs of area depots across the country, while also calling for increased funding to the depots.
Meanwhile, the president who dropped a hint on the possible removal of petroleum subsidy yesterday at the opening ceremony of the ongoing 35th edition of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Nigeria Annual International Conference and Exhibition (NAICE) 2011 in Abuja stated that the continued regulation of pump prices of petroleum products had become a drain on the nation’s resources.
The president, who was represented at the event by the minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, in his address said that apart from draining national resources, the huge cost of fuel subsidies had also limited government’s ability to provide an enabling environment for private sector investment in the country’s downstream petroleum sector.
In what seemed like dancing to the demands by the 36 state governors for the abolition of petroleum subsidies to free up more funds for the payment of the new minimum wage and the development of other sectors, Jonathan said, “Significant national income has been expended so far on price regulation of refined products in the domestic market.”
This significant drain on national resources, the president maintained, had limited government’s ability to provide a sustainable basis for private sector downstream investment and development.
This development suggests that the eventual deregulation of the entire downstream sector of Nigeria’s oil and gas industry is imminent.
On the elimination of gas flaring, Jonathan urged the forum to deliberate and proffer to government the best measures to be adopted in the process of ending gas flaring within the stipulated government timeframe.
The president also said that government was focusing on addressing the environmental challenges in the Niger Delta through the adoption of environmentally friendly technologies in the nation’s exploration and production activities.
“Every nation with an important coastline must adopt best practices in its oil and gas activities to safeguard aquatic ecology of the coastline, which many of our communities are dependent on. The recent BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is an important warning signal to Nigeria and lessons learnt from the incident must be shared, especially through professional bodies like the SPE,” he said.
The president further disclosed that Nigeria’s domestic refining capacity would soon hit over one million barrels per day, owing to the implementation of the country’s national energy policy which is expected to reposition the nation’s oil and gas industry.
He also disclosed that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had been mandated to develop three new refineries in addition to the rehabilitation of existing ones, to meet the country’s objective of attaining self-sufficiency in petroleum products.
He explained that the thrust of the country’s energy policy was in the optimal utilisation of the nation’s energy resource mix, for sustainable development through increase in the pace of oil and gas exploration, development and production, internal sufficiency in petroleum products and export of value added excess, as well as liberalisation and deregulation of the downstream sector and progressively privatising the oil and gas industry to bring in private sector efficiency that would engender sustainability.