The Oil Marketers Consortium on import of petroleum products has blamed the Nigeria National Petroleum Company, NNPC and Britannia U deal on the importation of the adulterated petroleum products into the country.
The Chairman of the consortium Adebowale Olujimi stated this when he appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Resources, Downstream, investigating the importation of 9,000 metric tonnes of adulterated petroleum products into Nigeria.
Mr. Olujimi commended the NNPC for giving indigenous companies the opportunity to participate in the Direct Sale and Direct Purchase, DSDP Contract; thereby enabling healthy and safe competition with other International trading companies and refiners.
According to him “to ease the challenges faced by the good citizens of Nigeria in accessing petroleum products, the Federal Government of Nigeria through her Regulatory body – NNPC awarded DSDP contract to indigenous companies to encourage delivery of petroleum product and crude lifting in equal commercial value”.
He added that while other members of the consortium including Emadeb/Hyde and AY Maikifi had engaged a reputable international company for delivery of all PMS cargoes and prompt loading of crude oil; Brittania-U chose to engage a different entity for her own supplies.
He also stated that the PMS alleged to be methanol-blended was solely delivered by Brittania-U via MT Torm Hilde in January 2022.
The oil maketer also said that other consortium members namely Emadeb/Hyde and AY Maikifi were not privy to the arrangements for the delivery of the aforementioned PMS and there is no documentary evidence relating to the PMS.
He told the House Committee members that Brittania-U as a company should be asked to provide all answers to the queries regarding the adulterated petroleum products imported into the country.
Quality control tests
In her defence, the CEO of Brittania-U, Uju Ifejika said her company has done no wrong as it only brought in what was specified by the NNPC in the contract.
She added that necessary quality control tests were carried out at every turn by NNPC, NMDPRA experts alongside those from her company with clearance certificates issued and the products successfully handed over to the NNPC.
“We have a DSDP contract with NNPC and we have done DSDP with NNPC of two and a half years, and we have brought in 10 cargoes.
“This is our tenth cargo and none of our cargoes was off-spec. And this particular one was not off-spec.
“Before a cargo will come in, there will be a test at the port of loading, which they did at Antwerp. This time, our supplier, Petraco, did their sample at Antwerp and they gave us their sample result which we gave to NNPC, and NNPC confirmed it was okay.” Ifejika added.
Emmanuel Ukoh
