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4,501 Trucks Loaded with Petrol Disappeared In December, NNPC Says

Nigeria lost about 148,533000 million litres of petrol to diversion during the December fuel crisis. Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr Maikanti Baru, has disclosed.
Baru stated that during the period, the Corporation could not track the movement of 4,501 trucks which were transporting the 148,533000 million litres that literally disappeared.
“Due to massive diversion, hoarding, panic buying and smuggling, coupled with the information that three Direct Sales Direct Purchase Consortia had rejected October cargoes, there was insinuation of a supply gap,” he said Thursday at an investigative public hearing by a Joint Senate and House of Representatives Committees on Petroleum Downstream, at the National Assembly Complex Abuja.
The joint hearing was instituted to find out what led to the acute scarcity of petrol during the yuletide and how a reoccurrence can be prevented.
The NNPC GMD listed some of the key factors which were responsible for the crisis to include insufficient reserve, clearance speed, supply gap, diversion, hoarding, panic buying and smuggling.
He noted that prior to the crises, NNPC had 1.9 billion litres strategic reserve of petrol, which would have lasted for 53 days but that due to panic buying, diversion and hoarding, the Corporation was unable to cope with the daily national consumption of 37 million litres of petrol, which led to the presence of long queues at petrol stations across the country.
He however said that NNPC took some urgent steps which included the immediate activation of war room, additional imports to increase days sufficiency, 24-hour operations in all NNPC Depots and mega stations; sustained media and stakeholders engagements; increased monitoring, surveillance and sanctions as well as restreaming at Kaduna and Port Harcourt refineries put at 3 million daily, to bring the situation under control.

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