By Anayo Korie
THE Kero-Direct Scheme (KDS), a project initiated by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in partnership with Capital Oil and Gas, will generate about 3,000 direct jobs for Nigerians, Managing Director of Capital Oil and Gas Industries, Mr. Ifeanyi Ubah, has said.
Ubah who spoke at the official launch of the project in Lagos recently said Capital Oil had employed about 250 youths, while an additional 2,750 would be hired in the next six months. “It is part of measures to end kerosene scarcity and make product available to Nigerians.”
The project was established by the NNPC in partnership with Capital Oil and Gas Industries to supply kerosene directly to households in the country. The project, which kicked off in Lagos last Saturday, with Amuwo-Odofin and Apapa local government areas as starting points, will be extended to all the 57 local government areas (LGAs) and local council development authorities (LCDAs) in Lagos and subsequently to other parts of the country.
Under the arrangement, the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC), a subsidiary of the NNPC, will provide the product that will be sold to end-users at the official rate of N50 per litre. The product will be dispensed through Capital Oil dispensing trucks.
Ubah said the sale would be restricted to 25 litres to each household, to ensure that middlemen do not hijack the scheme, adding that about 880 households from each of the 57 local councils in Lagos will benefit on weekly basis.
He said his company had acquired seven large barges and five tug-boats, to ensure that the exercise was conducted without hitches, adding that the scheme was a bold effort by NNPC in partnership with Capital Oil to sell kerosene directly to the people.
His words: “Capital Oil has been very concerned about the difficulty in getting kerosene for domestic use. It is in response to this that the company came up with this innovation of deploying mobile filling stations with standard dispensing pumps to deliver kerosene at official price of N50 per litre to Nigerians. The scheme will afford our people greater access to the product with a view to reducing the use of charcoal and firewoods, which are hazardous to health.
“With a storage capacity of 196 million litres and dispensing capacity of 56 million litres per day, our knack for efficiency and excellence is demonstrated in our innovative robustness as we operate a system that transfers product from our jetty to other nearby depots through integral underground pipe network.
In addition to our depot, we can supply up to four other depots simultaneously. With our newly acquired seven large barges and five tug boats, we are more than poised to deliver quality service to the good people of Nigeria,” he submitted.
According to him, the choice of Amuwo-Odofin and Apapa as selling points for the commencement of the project was deliberate, as those areas are among places with higher concentration of people.
Investigations by The Moment revealed that oil marketing firms and surface tank dealers are still selling a litre of kerosene at N100 per litre, which is above the official pump of price N50 a litre. Capital Oil and Gas has world-class depot with the capacity to store about 196 million litres of products.
The company also has dispensing capability of 56 million litres per day, 30 arms loading gantry, deep-water jetty that is capable of docking four large vessels simultaneously, 700 road tanker fleet, integrated products pipelines, regional strategic oil depots in Suleja, Funtua, Kano and Emene.
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