The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and 31 upstream oil and gas industry companies on Friday announced a $30 million (N11.4 billion) intervention fund to combat coronavirus in Nigeria.
The Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mele Kyari, who announced this in Abuja, said the Fund is in response to a national emergency.
Mr Kyari said the fund is an industry-wide collaborative intervention to combat the pandemic and its impact on Nigeria.
He said the intervention, which aligns with the ongoing federal government effort to support the country’s national healthcare delivery facilities to cope with the onslaught of the virus, involves partners under the umbrella of Upstream Oil & Gas Industry Intervention Initiative on COVID-19.
Under the arrangement, the NNPC chief said the fund would be deployed to meet three important emergencies.
They include provision of medical consumables, deployment of logistics and in-patient support systems and delivery of medical infrastructure.
He said the support initiative would be delivered in phases starting from Friday.
“To address the increasing demand for medical services, we are immediately providing medical consumables covering testing kits, medical protective, suits, and ambulances to the highly impacted areas across the federation.
“This will be followed in the next few days with the deployment of ventilators, beds and temporary intensive care facilities across the six geographical zones of the federation,” Mr Kyari said.
Some of the companies involved in the intervention include Niger Delta Petroleum Resource Limited, Oando Oil Limited, Oriental Energy Resources Limited, Pillar Oil Limited, Platform Petroleum Limited, and Seplat Petroleum Development Company.
The others include Shoreline Natural Resources, SunTrust Oil. Company, Vertex Energy Limited, Waltersmith Petroman Oil Limited and Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum Limited.
The NNPC GMD said the corporation will soon unveil a similar intervention between it and its downstream partners.
The NNPC is also involved in another private sector initiative spearheaded by the Bankers Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria in collaboration with banks’ chief executives and Dangote Foundation to mobilise N120 billion for a similar purpose.
