$156m
upgrade for NP
By Driselle Ramjohn
Trinidad Express
Port Spain
Petroleumworldtt.com
06 24 07
OUT OF SERVICE: A pedestrian yesterday walks past
one of the NP gas stations that have been closed
for an upgrade on Wrightson Road, Port of Spain.
THE Trinidad and Tobago National Petroleum Marketing
Company (NP) has embarked on a billion dollar project
to re-brand the NP line of products and services.
A major part of this re-branding exercise is the
total upgrade of all the company's 152 service
stations across the country, which commenced in
January.
NP
chief executive officer Richard Callender told
the Express yesterday: "We have a network
of service stations that fly the NP flag that are
not in the best state of repair and these are stations
that NP has inherited over the last 30 odd years."
"Since that time very little work has been
done with respect to upgrading the service station
network. We, the management team, through the board
have been mandated to change that image. So we
are in fact in the process of re-branding our service
station network. We like to say that 'future for
NP starts now'".
Callender said that the company intends to complete
the service station upgrade in three years.
NP has received part of the funding for the project
from Government and the rest through loans.
"Between September last year and October
this year we are spending some $76 million we propose
to spend about 80 million dollars in the next year
as well," Callender added.
Five
service stations will be "knocked down
and re-built" at a time while others will
be simultaneously upgraded.
The upgrades include the replacement of fuel storage
tanks from the typical 2,000 gallons single walled
tanks to 10,000 gallons doubled walled tanks per
product (premium, super unleaded and diesel) that
are environmentally safe.
The service stations will also now have new fuel
dispensers which will have credit card readers
so customers can pay for and pump their own fuel.
The
new tanks should hold enough fuel to last four
to five days and should assist in the company's
new objective of having "zero stock out" which
means that the stations should always have fuel
despite labour unrest or other unforeseen circumstance.
"Imagine that here in this country where
the vehicular population is close to 600,000 and
we have storage tanks that are typically 2,000
gallons and those are tanks that we used some 40
years ago," Callender said.
Another project in the works in the construction
of a fuel pipeline from Pointe-a-Pierre to a gantry
to be built in Central Trinidad, which will service
the East/West Corridor.
This, Callender said, should be ready within the
next two years.
dramjohn@trinidadexpress.com
Trinidad
Express
Saturday, June 23rd 2007
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©2007 Trinidad Express. All Rights Reserved.
