A vessel containing 25,435 metric tons of petrol to the country was detained by the NCS after it had discharged its contents to a major marketer, whose identity for now is unknown. The vessel was detained for 15 days which prevented another vessel, MT Gaz Providence,’ loaded with Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) or cooking gas to berth and discharge its products.
MT Gaz Providence was brought into Lagos by the Nigeria LNG Limited for berthing at the North Oil Jetty (NOJ) at Apapa, which is dedicated for LPG vessels. The delay, however, caused by the MT Histria, caused panic among cooking gas marketers as major gas plants had exhausted their product and were waiting for the cooking gas vessel to discharge, ThisDay reports.
The vessel ‘MT Histria was detained by the NCS after it berthed over non-payment of relevant fees to the Federal Government. However, the vessel had discharged its product for a major marketer, which previous reports had wrongly claimed to be Forte Oil.
The management of Forte Oil Plc has, however, denied claims earlier made that the petrol vessel, ‘MT Histria,’ discharged petrol to the company stating that ‘[the company] has a robust compliance system and ensures that its transactions with vendors and other suppliers comply with all international and local regulations’.
Parts of this article originally appeared in ThisDay Newspapers
