How we’ll deploy CNG to NNPC stations by December: Mele Kyari

*Says we are expanding and by next year; we will see this deployed in 200 to 300 stations across the country, not only NNPC stations

Isola Moses | ConsumerConnect

With a plan to expand the arrangement by next year, deploy in 200 to 300 stations across the country, Malam Mele Kolo Kyari, Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has said that retailing stations operated by the state oil firm will have the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) by December 2020.

Malam Kyari, disclosed this after ‘The Value chain Third Annual Lecture & Awards’ programme with the lecture theme, “The Role Of Media In The Nigerian Petroleum Industry Reform & Investment” Monday, October 12, in Abuja, FCT.

The NNPC GMD stated that the deployment of CNG would be extended to independent retail stations, as the NNPC plans to replicate the plants in about 200 to 300 non-NNPC owned petrol stations by the end of 2021.

Kyari said: “We are deploying in all our stations. Like we said, by December we will deploy it in all NNPC stations.

“We would have deployed it to all our retail stations. We are expanding and by next year; we will see this deployed in 200 to 300 stations across the country, not only NNPC stations.”

According to him, the New Media defies what the Corporation does. He decried the setback that adversarial journalism and fake news has posed to national development.

He urged the conventional media to serve as a veritable validation source to the social media news.

“There is a journalism now that has come. It is called new media or fake news. Today, journalism is on people’s telephone handset.

“You can have an individual, not a corporate entity, with a million audience. There is no control over what he does.

“So, companies should refocus on the new media as wrong information is planted on the minds of the people and you will never able to take it out.”

The NNPC Chief, however, solicited a synergy between the NNPC and the media with a view to having a robust understanding of issues for exactly what the oil corporation does.

Dr. Omar Farouk Ibrahim, Secretary-General, African Petroleum Producers’ Organisation (APPO), in a paper presentation, stated that most of the journalists covering the oil and gas beats lack insight into the industry and the issues involved.

Ibrahim lamented the dearth of entering qualification and standard that permeates the Nigerian media industry.

Ibrahim urged the National Assembly to address the issues of Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) and that lawmakers should enact a law to be called Energy Journalists Fund.

Petroleum is a critical sector, which its information deserves a special attention as such a fund in the rank of the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) is desirable for the promotion of oil and gas journalism in Nigeria, said he.

Justice Derefaka, Technical Adviser, Gas Business & Policy Implementation to the Minister for Petroleum Resources, disclosed that the sector is so technical for the understanding of even engineers, and to say the least, the journalists.