TheCable

A total of 91 companies are vying to secure contract for the provision of coastal and bunkering vessel services for the operations of the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC), a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

This will serve as a temporary solution to the transportation of crude oil as a result of attacks on pipelines.

Ohi Alegbe, spokesman of the corporation, disclosed this in a statement, saying Ibe Kachikwu, NNPC group managing director, has promised to make the entire process open to the public.

According to him, the bidding was conducted at the NNPC headquarters in Abuja in the full glare of representatives of the companies, officials of the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) and the Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI).

Alegbe said kachikwu expressed delight over the good turnout of indigenous Nigerian companies and vessel owners in the bid process.

“I am happy that there is much show of interest in this process,” Alegbe quoted Kachikwu as saying in a statement.

“The process is going to be transparent from the beginning to the end and we want the best yield in terms of value addition and best services and obviously we are going to grow the Nigerian content in this regard.

“I am hoping that you are going to be part of the journey that we are taking NNPC through.”

The statement added that Kachikwu pledged to sustain ongoing reform process in the corporation which has witnessed the monthly publication of NNPC financial and operational transactions for public scrutiny and the recent public harvesting of bids tendered for the new offshore processing contracts among other initiatives.

The ongoing bid exercise seeks to engage the  services of reputable organisations with essentially three ranges of Deadweight Tonnage (DWT)  5, 000-8, 000 DWT, 10, 000- 20, 000 DWT and 25, 000-50, 000 DWT.

The coastal vessel is designed to evacuate petroleum products from NNPC coastal refineries to various discharge ports in Nigeria, deliver petroleum products to water fed depots with restricted draft jetties of 6.0 to 11metres as well as conduct ship-to-ship transfer of cargo from import tankers and discharge same at waters depots among other functions.