Olusola Bello
The fuel blended with methanol may not be a total waste after all as there are plans to blend it with genuine fuel with the right spec that would bring the product to acceptable specification in the country.
Already arrangements are in place to pump fuel with the right spec into some storage facilities that have very little quantity of the adulterated fuel and mix them with a ratio 80 to 20 percent so that the effect of methanol content in the mixed product would be reduced significantly to the level that it may not be harmful to car engines when used.
Those companies that have a significant volume of fuel that has a high concentration of methanol and have no space to take in new products that would be used to blend the methanol have been advised to hold till such a time when they create space.
According to industry sources, the process may take up till the end of March before the industry would get off the whole saga of methanol.
The Pipeline and products Marketing company PPMC however is said not to be having enough product to carry out this exercise, but attention is now on those companies with little quantity of the affected fuel, so that fuel with the right spec can be pumped into them to dilute them.
An industry source said the situation is however too bad as to warrant panic buying and by Monday this week the situation would greatly improve.
“The backing loading would be a long process but it can be done. The process would be that each time there is the evacuation of methanol injected fuel and reinjection of Nigeria’s spec there must be serious testing and retesting to ensure that the final result meets the Nigeria’s specification.”
A vessel that is bringing a new fuel would have to pump at least 80 percent of its stock into the storage facility with methanol. And in the event that the storage facility is full with methanol invested fuel, they would take about 20 percent of the product and mix it with the fuel with the right spec.
The supplier it is gathered would be responsible for the cost of all the processes of righting the wrong. In this case, PPMC would be debited by the companies while PPMC in return debit the supplier.
Presently all the chemists in PPMC and NNPC are already summoned to Lagos, marketers are also bringing their chemists with all of them converging somewhere in Lagos, to make sure they do thorough jobs.
Already technical and commercial committees have been set up so that at every stage everything that needs to be done is done.
The source said methanol is not part of the component of the fuel Nigeria use, hence, no attention is given to testing when testing fuel that comes the country. Meaning that the supplier must have taken advantage of Nigeria not looking for methanol to inject it into the system.