The Nigerian National Petroleum Company, NNPC, Thursday, said that 91 corporations, consisting mainly of indigenous vessel house owners, are vying to safe the contract for the supply of coastal and bunkering vessel providers for the operations of the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company, PPMC, a subsidiary of the NNPC.

The NNPC, in a press release after the general public harvesting of technical bids submitted by the companies, said that the continued bid exercise seeks to engage the services of reputable organizations with essentially three ranges of Deadweight Tonnage (DWT) 5, 000-8, 000 DWT, 10, 000- 20, 000 DWT and 25, 000-50, 000 DWT.

Below the scope of labor, in line with the NNPC, the coastal vessel is anticipated to supply the following companies; evacuate petroleum products from NNPC coastal refineries to varied discharge ports in Nigeria or outside Nigeria as may be designated by PPMC, delivery of petroleum products to water fed depots with restricted draft jetties of 6.0 to 11 metres in addition to conduct ship-to-ship switch of cargo from import tankers and discharge identical at waters depots among different functions .

“The desired Bunkering vessel providers entails: loading of Automated Gasoline Oil In the past and Low Pour Gas Oil LPFO from water-fed refineries for bunkering purposes, provide bunkers to NNPC owned and chartered vessels as required on a month-to-month basis, holding correct accounts for Ago and LPFO loaded and equipped to NNPC Vessels, forwarding data of the bunkering actions to Marine Transport division of the PPMC on a monthly foundation amongst different actions,” the NNPC stated.

The train which was conducted at the corporate Headquarters of the NNPC in Abuja in the full glare of representatives of the bidding companies also had officials of the Bureau of Public Procurement, BPP and the Nigerian Extractive Trade Transparency Initiative, NEITI as impartial assessors.

Declaring the exercise open, Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mr. Ibe Kachikwu, expressed delight in the huge end up of indigenous Nigerian Corporations and vessel owners in the bid course of.

He stated, “I’m completely happy that there is much present of interest in this course of. The process is going to be transparent from the beginning to the tip and we would like the best yield when it comes to value addition and greatest companies and obviously we’re going to grow the Nigerian Content in this regard.