NP
plans major upgrade
By Sandra Chouthi
The Trinidad Guardian
Port
Spain
Petroleumworldtt.com
12 17 06
As
part of a major three-year upgrade of its service
station network, state-owned National Petroleum
(NP) will be upgrading 24 stations and building
ten new ones along the East/West Corridor and north/south
highways.
Speaking
at its annual Christmas function at the Courtyard
Marriott along the Audrey Jeffers Highway on Wednesday
night, chairman Lawford Dupres said, “We have
been in discussions with our shareholder, the government,
to allow us to do things that we feel ought to be
done to improve the network throughout T&T.
“That
includes refurbishing stations, building new stations,
adding more capacity for fuels at our stations so
we don’t run out of fuels so easily, and building
storage and distribution network that can cater
for the increase in vehicles that we all know are
plaguing the roads right now.”
He
said the current network was built about 40 years
ago to cater for a population that was one-third
of what exists today.
“And
it is a struggle for us to keep up. We are running
full tilt trying to keep gasoline and diesel fuel
supplied to our stations,” Dupres said.
Referring
to this week’s agreement with the Oilfield
Workers’ Trade Union for a 15 per cent increase
for NP employees over three years, Dupres said NP
hopes to see “some peace in the industrial
sector” which will allow it to upgrade as
planned.
CEO
Richard Callender said that as of January, five
NP-owned stations will be knocked down and rebuilt
to include change out of storage tanks, refuelling
systems and lines and dispensers and kiosks for
gas bars.
The
capacity of storage tanks at stations in urban and
rural areas, which currently hold 2,000 gallons
of each fuel type, will be increased to 10,000 gallons
to prevent stock outs.
Storage
capacity at rural stations include Siparia, Penal,
Debe, Pt Fortin, Manzanilla and Sangre Grande.
Callender
said NP is looking at acquiring new road tank wagons
that will hold between 8,000 and 10,000 gallons
of fuel.
Each
of the modern stations will have pay-at-the-pump
facilities similar to what exists in the US and
Europe.
“We
recognise that we are not satisfied with the quality
of service that the attendants give you at the pumps,”
Callender said.
“And
we’re saying, while we are continuing training
and retraining of these attendants, we want to give
you, the motoring public of T&T, the ability
in all of our modern stations to go and put in your
card, pump your own gas. That’s the flexibility
we’re giving you come April 2007.”
He
said stations at Tragarete Road and Richmond Street
in Port-of-Spain and Cross Crossing in San Fernando
and the new $10 million station in Orange Hill,
Tobago, will be retrofitted with pay-at-the-pump
dispensers.
The
NP CEO said the company will spend an average of
$8 million per gas bar, and $1.5 million on change
out of storage tanks at each station.
The
Trinidad Guardian
Friday 15th December, 2006
Copyright
©2006 The Trinidad Guardian. All Rights Reserved.
