Ebun Francis
The Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Dr Maikanti Baru on Thursday explained the difficulties being experienced in the aviation sector was not as a result of the scarcity of Jet-A1, but rather the inability of the airlines to pay for the product. The NNPC boss said the corporation had taken steps to ensure adequate supply of the product with the importation of over 45 million litres.
According to him, the challenge had more to do with the inability of the airlines to pay for the product after the introduction of a cash-and-carry policy by marketers .
In the last couple of months, aviation fuel scarcity has been a challenge in the sector, as airlines often complain of the non-availability of the product.
In another development, the NNPC Group Managing Director restated the corporation’s commitment to continue with its twin gas projects of Brass LNG and Olokola LNG. The two projects, in his words were high priority gas ventures, which promised to boost the Federal Government’s revenue.
According to him, “We are still committed, as the NNPC, to monetising our natural gas. We have the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas, which is at the moment monetising about four billion standard cubic feet of gas on a daily basis. We also have plans for the Olokola LNG as well as the Brass LNG.
“We have a little challenge with market windows for these projects, which we are reviewing on a monthly basis. Once the appropriate market window opens up, we will quickly get more shareholders to join us for the projects.”
He announced that a meeting of Brass LNG stakeholders had been scheduled for early next year to look for the way forward for the project.
