“We Have Resumed Massive Loading Of Petroleum Products” —Capital Oil

Months after it was forced to shut down operations and its premises sealed -off by the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) for alleged debts owed to Coscharis Group and Access Bank plc, downstream petroleum giant; Capital Oil and Gas Industries Limited said that its premises have been reopened and that normal loading of petroleum products have resumed on full scale.

Months after it was forced to shut down operations and its premises sealed -off by the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) for alleged debts owed to Coscharis Group and Access Bank plc, downstream petroleum giant; Capital Oil and Gas Industries Limited said that its premises have been reopened and that normal loading of petroleum products have resumed on full scale.
Priding itself as the biggest tank farm facility currently in Nigeria, the company has also said that petroleum tanker activities have since resumed at the depot since January 2013 and that it is now working 24 hours again.
Capital Oil Depot Manager, Mr. Geoffrey Okorie in a chat with Shipping Position Daily via telephone last week refused to comment on the court case but confirmed that there are products at the depot.
He however debunked rumours that while it was on lock down, the tanks inside the facility have been leaking its product into the ground. Geoffrey said that this is unfounded and that the storage tanks are in good shape.
"We have started working 24hours as we are known for, as far as I am concerned, there is product at the depot and we have been loading massively".
Our correspondent however noted that the company was not included in the import permit list for the first quarter which was recently released by the Petroleum Product Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA).
Okorie also explained that even though the company has not been receiving products yet, it has been loading out the one it had in stock before the court incident.
The Managing Director of, AMCON, Mustafa Chike-Obi had explained that even though AMCON could have remained at the premises until the Court of Appeal rules, but that it decided to vacate the premises because it wanted to make sure that it is not associated in any way with anything that might have to do with scarcity of petroleum products.
"We had a number of considerations in mind. The first one was the public interest. There was a pipeline explosion in Lagos and we do not want AMCON to be associated in any way with shortage of petroleum products" he said.