Fuel: Stakeholders Seek Restoration of Atlas Cove Jetty

The Federal Government has been called upon to take urgent steps to restore the Atlas Cove jetty to its full standard, in order to cut down the demurrage, which Nigeria incurs on vessels that bring in petroleum products. The jetty located at Tarkwa-Bay area of Lagos State is the country’s largest platform for storage and distribution of petroleum products. The facility has been performing abysmally, following the 2006 fire incident and the 2009 attack by Niger Delta militants, which affected the central manifold that transports products from landed vessels to the jetty.
Due to limited import reception facilities, Nigeria incurs billions of dollars as demurrage on berthing fuel-laden vessels.

Some operators in the oil and gas sector who spoke against the backdrop of recent protests that greeted the removal of petroleum subsidy opined that the only way to prevent further losses due to demurrage and put an end to incessant fuel crisis in the country was to rehabilitate the Atlas Cove jetty, which is responsible for the reception and distribution of about 40 per cent of fuel in Nigeria.

According to one of the operators, “the jetty, known as System 2B services Mosimi, Ilorin and Ibadan depots, from where petroleum products are distributed other parts of the country. If Atlas Cove is working today, 45 percent of the problem would have been solved.”

In January 2010, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), announced plans to collaborate toward rehabilitating and upgrading the Atlas Cove Jetty. The then NPA Managing Director, Mallam Abdulsalam Mohammed told officials of the Transport Ministry, who were on a tour of the facility that the NPA had made adequate provisions in its 2010 draft budget to rehabilitate the jetty.

He said the organisation would engage consultants to assess the situation and come up with a new design.

The NPA chief had hinted that a survey was conducted and it was found out that the current draught of the jetty was not consistent with its original design. Mohammed said NPA had as at then spent N8 billion out of the N16 billion meant for rehabilitation of the Lagos Harbours moles.

He said there should be more than one discharging terminal at the Atlas Cove, especially now that the nation depends on importation of petroleum products.

A group of militant in a convoy of speed boats, believed to be operatives of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, (MEND) unleashed terror on the jetty, destroying the central manifold after killing some security men on guard. The Jetty which was damaged during the attack had been reconnected to the depot through a temporary bye-pass, which allows ships to berth.

“The depot is now fully connected to the discharge point as was the case before the militants struck”, a source at the NNPC had told THISDAY.

Commissioned in 1981, Atlas Cove Depot was designed as a transit depot to supply all the depots along system 2B- Ejigbo Satellite, Mosimi, Ibadan , Ilorin and Ore , regarded as the most active depot system in the country.








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