Minister declares Operation Zero Fuel Queue

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, has said that the Minister of Petroleum Resources and Chairman of NNPC board, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke and the Group Managing Director of the Corporation, Engr. Andrew Yakubu, are in harmonious working relationship and dismissed insinuations in some quarters of a phantom frosty relationship between the two key figures in the oil and gas industry.

The Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division of the NNPC, Mr. Ohi Alegbe, described the reports as a figment of the overheated imagination of the authors.
Alegbe said the Minister and the NNPC in the last few months have heeded countless number of summons from the National Assembly, wondering why the media would go to town with the report that the Petroleum Minister was doing everything to thwart the proposed investigation into the alleged N10 billion purportedly expended on the charter of jets by the corporation.

The NNPC spokesman maintained that the Minister and the corporation are putting together all the documents that the House of Representatives Committee on Public Account had requested for, stressing that at the end of the probe, the Minister and the Corporation would be vindicated.

Meanwhile, in a deft move aimed at sanitizing the nation’s fuel supply and distribution channel, the Minister of Petroleum Resources has reeled out measures to ensure round the clock availability of petrol across the country.

Under the arrangement, the Minister has approved the allocation of a total volume of 1, 854, 314 metric tonnes of premium motor spirit known as petrol as supplementary volumes for first quarters 2014 and second quarter 2014 June only delivery.

Alegbe, explained over the weekend that the supplementary volume for Q1 quota is 750, 000 Mt and the Q2 June only volume is 1, 104, 318. He noted that whilst the first quarter supplementary volume is designed to complement the earlier allocation in addition to covering any under delivery by marketers due to unforeseen financial challenges, the Q2 (June only) quota is in consonance with the national consumption pattern of 40 million litres per day.