NIGERIA’s Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF) on Thursday in Abuja said the ongoing rehabilitation of the refineries in the country would end fuel scarcity.
The Executive Secretary of the board, Mrs Adefunke Kasali, said this while speaking at a forum of the News Agency of Nigeria.
“The issue of fuel scarcity is an issue of supply and I think that the focus the government has to rehabilitate and get our refineries up and running efficiently is really the long-term solution.
“And I know that there is a lot of work being done on getting the refineries back doing the Turn Around Maintenance (TAM).
“Aand the Minister of Petroleum Resources had mentioned that they had now been awarded to original builders of these refineries so that we can get the expertise that built them in the first place.
“That is the long-term solution. When we have our refineries working to meet our local demand then the issue of distribution is easier.”
Kasali urged Nigerians to have faith in the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), which aims at sweeping reforms of the country’s oil sector.
The main thrust of the bill presented last month by President Goodluck Jonathan to the National Assembly is the creation of new institutions to govern the operations of the oil.
The executive secretary said the PIB when passed into law would greatly improve operations in the oil industry, even as the PEF would maintain its role in the sector.
“I believe that the review of the laws and transformation plans would just help Nigeria; I believe that it will be good for Nigeria.
“As far as PEF is concerned, we are in the bill that has been presented at National Assembly.
“Our commitment to Nigeria is that we will do whatever we need to do; work very hard to ensure that the benefits that government had in mind in putting together PEF are delivered to Nigerian public.
“By way of our products being available in the retail outlets and also by way of cutting out people who are exploiting the situation that even cause products not being sold at the appropriate prices.”
Petroleum Equalisation Fund targets 100% electronic products loading by November
The Petroleum Equalisation Fund Management Board (PEFMB) said it would begin 100 per cent electronic system of loading of petroleum products by November this year.
The Executive Secretary of the fund, Mrs Adefunke Kasali, made this known in an interview in Abuja.
She said the project had been tagged ‘Project Aquila’, and would help to track down fraudulent marketers and enhance prompt payment of marketers’ claims.
“With project Aquila, the first thing is that there must be [loading and there must be receiving].
“One of the things that we have had is an issue where we were never sure that an item that was loaded was received.
“And in some cases we even had situations where it was purportedly received, but it was never loaded.
“Aquila will ensure that there is a genuine transaction; that the product was loaded and was received.
“The other thing with Aquila is that the processing of that transaction is now very smooth and efficient and then the payment is done typically under two weeks.”
Kasali said at least 60 per cent of the depots in the country had been covered since the agency commenced electronic tracking of loading and movement of fuel tankers across the country in April.
According to her the agency was working very hard to ensure that all the depots in the country are “Aquila ready’’ by the end of November.
She explained that the project would entail using the latest Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag which would be administered to companies and operators.
“With Aquila we have moved to an end-to-end electronic solution where it is loaded and dispatched by a mobile computer working with an RFID device.
“So that at each of our depots, our depot representatives have this device, this is the mobile computer part of it and the RFID device, which reads the information.
“On every truck that has registered and has been tagged there is this RFID tag that is affixed on that truck and all the information about that transaction are actually stored on this mobile device.
“This is all that goes on this truck; it is [software] re-writable and so when the transaction is ready, our depot representative reads all the information from our server unto this device and dispatches the truck electronically.”
She noted that the new electronic solution would bring more efficiency and effectiveness in determining the volume of petroleum products bridged across the country to facilitate payments.
She described the electronic solution as “ the first full end-to-end operation and payment solutions anywhere in the country”.
Kasali said the new software is designed to “have little human interference’’ and thereby not vulnerable to manipulation.
“Once a marketer is registered on our database and he comes into our office to do some transactions, all the depot representatives have to do is to just pick that information.
“The truck would have been registered and that information is sitting on the server and in all the devices.
“It’s not subject to a lot of human manipulation and that is the beauty of it.’’
Aquila is a Latin word for eagle, a bird renowned for its strength, speed and swiftness.
The project was conceptualised since 2007, but implementation commenced in January this year.
- NAN