The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Wednesday, stated that it has commenced the unbundling of the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC) into three different companies — a storage, pipelines and products marketing companies.
The PPMC was set up in 1988 with the objective to provide excellent customer services by transporting crude oil to the refineries and moving white petroleum products, according to the NNPC website. However, with the ongoing restructuring of the state oil company, its subsidiaries are being visited to evaluate them and restructure the ones needing it.
Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu disclosed this during a tour of the Okrika Jetty and the Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC) Limited.
“The PPMC would be split into a pipelines company that would focus primarily on the maintenance of the over five thousand kilometers pipelines of the Corporation;a storage company that would maintain all the over 23 depots and a products marketing company that would market and sell petroleum products,” Kachikwu said.
He maintained that the move would ensure that the right set of skills are rightly positioned and the number of leakages in terms of pipelines break and products loss are reduced to the barest minimum.
Kachikwu also disclosed that the country’s refineries would not be sold but joint venture partners with established track records of success in refining would be invited to support the running of the refineries in order to ensure efficiency.
He added that the ongoing phased rehabilitation of all the state-owned refineries would be given an accelerated vigour with the aim of reducing petroleum products importation into the country, adding that at full capacity, all the refineries could supply only 20 million litres of premium motor spirit otherwise known as petrol on a daily basis.
On her part, the Managing Director of Pipelines and Products Marketing Company Limited, Mrs. Esther Namdi-Ogbue assured the GMD that the company would think outside the box to provide solutions to all the challenges confronting the Company.
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