NNPC to Automate Crude Swap Process, Warns of Illegal Operators

Chineme Okafor in Abuja
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has said it will open up the process employed in its crude oil for product exchange scheme called Direct-Sale –Direct-Purchase (DSDP) to ensure that it is transparent from the beginning to its end point with its remittance of accrued revenues to the government.

It stated that the new drive would allow for minute-by-minute tracking of the scheme to allow the general public follow its operations transparently.
The corporation also raised the red flag on the activities of fraudsters who specialise in circulating phantom letters of crude oil allocation with the intent of defrauding unsuspecting would-be buyers or members of the public.

A statement from the Group General Manager Public Affairs of NNPC, Mr. Ndu Ughamadu, yesterday in Abuja, stated that this was disclosed by NNPC’s Group General Manager, Crude Oil Marketing Division (COMD), Mallam Mele Kyari, at the presentation of commendation letters to 12 staff of the COMD by the Group Managing Director of the corporation, Dr. Maikanti Baru.

Kyari, explained that the activities of the international fraudsters created an unnecessary distraction for staff of the COMD who were compelled to deal with huge turnover of scam mails on a regular basis.

He urged members of the public to be wary of such dubious emails purporting to emanate from the NNPC with mouth-watering crude oil allocation offers.
Kyari also gave an insight into the activities of the nefarious group, and said they functioned mostly by sending fake crude oil allocation letters using names of senior NNPC officials as decoy and requesting gullible individuals to pay certain cash deposits as commission on volume of crude received.

According to him: “The gullible individuals end up paying huge sums of dollars into these accounts as commission but the reality is that nobody allocates crude oil on a piece of paper the way the scammers canvass in their dubious letters. Everything about crude sale is electronic and real time. If you have your cargo, the whole world knows.”

To tackle the challenge, Kyari stated that the COMD has made available the email contacts of its top officials to allow members of the public opportunities to verify such emails on crude oil allocation.
He also noted that the division has embarked on the automation of the DSDP scheme to ensure transparency of the process.

The idea, he noted was to guarantee an end-to-end access to the DSDP programme online for relevant stakeholders to monitor the process from the point of crude oil allocation to conversion, return of products to the country and distribution by the Nigerian Products Marketing Company (NPMC), to the ultimate transfer of the naira cash into the Federation Account.

He said though some form of automation of the process existed at the moment, the new programme to be delivered by next month would provide insight into the minutest details of the entire transaction.