Transporters, tanker drivers, laud Baru for efficient fuel supply
The Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners, NARTO, and the Petroleum Tankers Drivers’ branches of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) have commended the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Dr. Maikanti Baru, for ensuring seamless supply and distribution of petroleum products across the country.
Speaking during a visit to the GMD by the associations, the NARTO President, Alhaji Kassim Ibrahim Bataiya, and Chairman of PTD, Chief Otumba Oladiti, were unanimous in their views that fuel supply and distribution matrix had improved under Dr. Baru’s watch.
According to Alhaji Bataiya, never in the history of the NNPC did the country record such an achievement which has brought about uninterrupted supply of petroleum products nationwide, due to the various strategic measures undertaken by the GMD
“Petroleum products scarcity has now disappeared from our filling stations. In fact, the retail price of the product has also come down from N145 per litre to N143 per litre. You have also extended considerable assistance to transporters by allocating Automotive Gas Oil, (AGO), at subsidized prices to enable them keep their trucks on the road,’’ he said.
The NARTO President also thanked Baru for the settlement of their freight bills of about N80 billion owed by the Petroleum Equalization Fund, PEF, Management Board.
PTD Chairman, Chief Otumba Oladiti, while re-echoing the zero fuel queue strides of the GMD, noted that the sanity brought to bear on the fuel supply and distribution chain by Baru should be extended to the refineries said to be scheduled for rehabilitation.
While urging the GMD and the NNPC’s management to remain focused on their mandate to the country, Chief Oladiti assured Baru of the tanker drivers’ due support.
Responding, Baru thanked the members and leadership of the associations for their kind words, noting that his team would do all it could to remain focus.
In a related development, NNPC and Bayero University Kano (BUK) have pledged to partner in the ongoing exploratory activities in the frontier basins across the country.
The GMD, NNPC, Baru, made this known recently when the Vice Chancellor of BUK, Prof. Muhammad Yahuza Bello, paid him a visit at the corporation’s headquarters in Abuja.
Dr. Baru said the Corporation would always identify with the Ivory Towers because its work force was drawn from the universities.
“Your visit would open up opportunities for collaboration between NNPC and your university; and we are looking forward to receiving your inputs”, Dr. Baru Stated.
He said while the corporation was not keen on setting up a university, it had nonetheless established the NNPC Learning Academy, which trains high level manpower for the Oil and Gas Industry, adding that it offered short- term high level technical courses capable of enhancing the oil industry operations.
Baru said NNPC already had an established relationship with Petronas on shipping, saying, further collaboration with the company was underway.
Earlier, Bello, said the university was in collaboration with Petronas, as he called on other industry stakeholders to join NNPC by showing interest in education.
He noted that Petronas had awarded Ph.D scholarship to 13 staff members of BUK in different areas of Civil Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Petroleum Engineering, among others in recent times.
“Bayero University, Kano, has being given permission by the National University Commission (NUC) to commence degree programmes in Petroleum Engineering and Chemical Engineering. The students are in their fourth year now and we believe that it would be a good idea for us to establish a relationship with NNPC in a number of areas, in particular, we want to appeal to NNPC to support BUK in implementing the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) we signed with Petronas’ University of Technology,” Bello stated.
Stories by Simon Ugwu
