With the recent fuel queues noticeable in some Nigerian cities finally tilting towards extinction, the 'War Room' (an action- oriented special task force created by the management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, to tackle the fuel issue)  is taking new measures to consolidate on its achievement.

Under the arrangement, the War Room, working in concert with major oil marketers and depot owners, is coordinating the loading of unprecedented volumes of premium motor spirits, PMS, to filling stations throughout the country.  The strategy is to provide extra volume of products so that the balance could be channeled towards building the national strategic stock which was depleted at the height of the fuel supply/ distribution challenge.

Within the last one week a record quantity of 10,142 trucks, the equivalent of about 334.6 million litres of fuel, has been distributed nationwide. The figure translates to a daily average distribution of about 1,448 trucks or 47.7million litres of PMS. By so doing the War Room exceeded its average national weekly target of 1300 trucks (per day) the equivalent of 42.9 million litres with an additional 4.8million litres. The 47.7 million litres figure is also far ahead of the daily national fuel consumption volume which stands at 33million litres.

A further breakdown of the War Room weekly loading chart for the period indicates that a haul of 131.4 million litres of fuel in 3,982 trucks were distributed nationwide last weekend beginning from Friday through Sunday in an unprecedented deployment of trucks.

 The records also show that while over 59.1 million litres of fuel was dispatched throughout the country on Thursday, March 4, 2010 via 1792 trucks a total of 1592 trucks or 52.5 million litres of PMS was loaded on Wednesday, March 3, 2010. A day earlier, 47 million litres of fuel was dispatched nationwide to complement the over 43.2 million litres of PMS which was loaded nationwide in 1310 trucks on Monday, March, 1 2010.

Mallam Farouk Ahmed, a member of the NNPC War Room who is also Executive Director, Commercial of the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company, PPMC, a subsidiary of the NNPC explained that the task force is determined to ensure a complete sanitization of the fuel supply and distribution chain in the country.

``Now we are moving beyond just eliminating the fuel queues to a point where we can build up inventory to act as quick intervention in case of line breaks or unexpected shortfalls. The idea is to use some of our depots like Ilorin, Kaduna, Suleja and Port Harcourt to build up stocks,’’ Ahmed stated.

The fact-based, real- time NNPC War Room was launched on January 29, 2010 by Dr. Mohammed Sanusi Barkindo, the NNPC Group Managing Director with an express mandate to end the intractable fuel supply and distribution challenges within 72 hours. But less than 48 hours of its existence reprieve came the way of Nigerians as the fuel queues evaporated.

Led by the Group Executive Director, Refineries and Petro-Chemicals, Engr. Austen Oniwon and the GED Commercial and Investment, Alhaji Aminu Baba-Kusa,  the War Room team is drawn from staff across the Group’s fuel supply chain- from marine to retail.

Its field observers and dedicated data gathering team ensure that it maintains an effective `port-to-pump’ supply chain management strategy.