WITH the achievement of sustained stability in the supply and distribution of petroleum products across the county, the management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC has taken the drive to attain total sanitisation of the fuel delivery mechanism to the riverine communities in the Niger Delta.

Speaking in an interactive session with Journalists in Abuja, the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, NNPC, Dr. Levi Ajuonuma, said that the Corporation has put in place measures aimed at revitalising commercial activities at the NNPC Retail operated Floating Mega Stations, FMS, which witnessed a lull at the height of the Niger Delta militancy.

He stated that some of the FMS are already recording impressive sales figures after a successful restreaming.
“I can tell you that our retail arm, the NNPC Retail under the watch of Dr. Oladipupo Ajiboye, is not only active in the Niger Delta riverine communities but also in business. As at today, three of the FMS located in Calabar, Cross Rivers State , Nembe in Bayelsa and Ikang in Akwa Ibom states are fully in operation and posting sales figures which can compete favorably with  some land based stations,” Ajuonuma said.

He also said that two other FMS, Ibaka in Akwa Ibom and Oporoma in Bayelsa states are ready for test run after undergoing pre_commissioning maintenance while similar maintenance exercise would be executed in the weeks ahead on the FMS in Bonny and Uta_Ewa, in Rivers and Akwa Ibom states respectively.

Thereafter, he said that focus would shift to the stations in Buguma in Rivers, Okerenkoko and Burutu in Delta,  Orogbo and Ayegbami in Ondo states.

Already the NNPC Group Managing Director, Mr. Austen Oniwon, has approved the construction of another FMS in Edo following a request by the people and Government of the state.

Commenting on the attitude of some host communities, Dr. Ajiboye, called on youths and community leaders to provide the much needed friendly and secure working environment to enable the expatriates from Julius Berger work properly and help the NNPC achieve its objective in the region.

Completed in 2006 by Julius Berger, the construction of the novel 12 Floating Mega Stations with installed capacity of 300,000 litres (each) of petroleum products was conceptualised to alleviate and eliminate the challenge of access to products by residents of the littoral communities in the Niger Delta region.  Unfortunately, the activities of restive youths prevented the NNPC Retail from operating the stations after a phased deployment of the FMS which began in late 2007 through 2009.

With the attendant corrosion induced by lack of usage and weathering, the NNPC Retail has since begun work in concert with Julius Berger to upgrade the facilities in line with the Corporation’s objective of ensuring adequate supply of petroleum products at competitive price to all the nooks and cranny of the riverine areas.

The NNPC called on the host communities to align with the Federal Government’s policy of zero tolerance for fuel scarcity by ensuring that Julius Berger has free access to the facilities so as to accelerate rehabilitation of the FMS to achieve effective supply of products to their areas.