Excerpts
MMS Series: We Never Imported Off-Spec Products – Brittiania-U
MMS Series // February 15, 2022

https://mmsplusng.com/we-never-imported-off-spec-products-brittiania-u/

The management of Brittania-U Nigeria Limited has exonerated the company from the ongoing controversy over off-spec Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) in the country saying the consortium product that arrived and discharged from 4th to 19 January 2022, met the Nigerian National Petroleum Company’s (NNPC) product specification.

According to the statement by the oil consortium, the product, which was imported through five daughter vessels, was duly certified as meeting NNPC product specifications.

Part of the company’s statement read: “Brittania-U management is aware of the publication by the Emadeb/ Hyde/Aymaiki, consortium partners and while we do not want to join issues with these companies, we want to affirm that what they stated does not relate to the issues at hand.”

“Suffice to state that Brittania-U’s record in the Oil & Gas industry, which covers the entire spectrum of Upstream, Midstream and Downstream, is impeccable. It should be noted that our Company was amongst the first 24 Indigenous Oil & Gas Companies that started the Petroleum importation business, under the Petroleum Support Fund (PSF) in 2008 which saw Brittania-U importing products for international Oil Companies such as Total Nigeria Pic, Mobil Oil Nigeria Pic, some Independents, and the defunct PPPRA.”

The oil company stressed that it has remained consistent and compliant over the past decade, as it knows the laws, rules and regulations, plays by them and has not fallen foul of any infraction by the regulatory authorities since it commenced operations.

“We, therefore, wish to state categorically that we never imported off-spec products, as claimed in publications making the rounds, as our imported products were all as per NNPC product quality requirements, so to state otherwise will be unfair Our imported products from our mother vessel MT TORM HILDE, met all NNPC/NMDPRA Product specifications and were duly cleared by DPR (now NMDPRA) in line with APPENDIX 1 of the NNPC-DSDP Agreement. All the PMS from our mother vessel MT TORM HILDE were discharged with all relevant certificates of quality after laboratory analysis as it was adjudged lead-free, ethanol-free, water-free, suspended matter free and had a sulphur content of 0.0174 as against 0.05, which is within the acceptable content allowable by Nigerian Midstream & Downstream Petroleum authorities. (refer to attached Appendix 1 NNPC PMS (Current Specification).”

“The quality certification and its recertification issued at the point of discharge by the Department of Petroleum Resources, now Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, cleared all the vessels as being ON SPEC. These vessels namely MT LESTE(see attached DPR Vessel Reporti, MT ERRINA, MT AMIF. MT OCEAN 111 and MT KINGIS that carried out the STS transfer of products on behalf of the NNPC/PPMC consignee from the mother vessel AT TOM HILDE were all duly cleared as being within NNPC product specification as conveying “ON SPEC products.”

“Brittania-U is concerned that while its consortium products have been discharged and dispensed at retail outlets in January, it was unwittingly now being linked with an issue of off-spec fuel induced scarcity that began around Monday, the 7 of February 2022,” the company said.

As part of efforts to clear its name, Brittiania-U made all the documents available and published on a national daily which clearly exonerated the company from the negative publication making rounds.