The Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) has called on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to make haste in re-opening the System 2B oil pipelines system Arepo, Ogun State in order to allow government depot begin distribution of petroleum products.
Alhaji Tokunbo Korodo, the South-West Chairman of the union in an exclusive chat with Shipping Position Daily last week also condemned the continuous dependence on private marketers for supply and distribution of kerosene, saying that government needs to rise up to the situation.
According to him, the System 2B, which carries products from the Atlas Cove-Mosimi-Satelite-Ibadan-Ilorin depots was shut down by the NNPC four months ago due to activities of vandals. Our correspondent recalls that the System 2B has witnessed several attacks from pipeline vandals leading to loss of billions of Naira in products and pipeline repairs.
“For the past four months, the entire System 2B has been closed down and nothing is functioning, they are not loading anything from there, it’s understandable that they are trying to chase away vandals from Arepo and Ikorodu axis, but the earlier the better”
He urged NNPC to return to kerosene distribution through the System 2B pipelines, saying that this is the only way price hike and scarcity could be conquered.
“Kerosene will continue to be scarce if there is no loading at the government-owned depot across the country, like in my own area, the entire System 2B has not been loading kerosene for the past 10 years, and this is the only area where some of the citizens can easily access kerosene, Government should come back to that reality”
“If we continue to rely on private depot for products, they are in the business to make money. The way we get kerosene in Lagos is that some retailers travel from as far as Port Harcourt and Warri to bring it to Lagos, added with the transportation cost, there is no way they can sell at the control price; government should bring the product nearer to the common man and the end users” he said.
The NUPENG top shot however said that the union is not opposed to government awarding security of the pipelines to private companies instead of the Nigerian military. According to him, the ultimate desire of the union is to see the pipelines working effectively.
“What we need is productivity and anything that will produce results, let there be free flow of products to the destination, government is the policy makers and they know the right thing to do, what we are more concerned about is the workability of the pipelines, we are interested in the end result, let there be functioning pipelines in the whole system to ease pumping of the product so that all the moribund depots will come to life, we are not so interested in who the contract is given to” he said.
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