NNPC, 31 Others boosts Covid-19 Fund with $30m

Chinazor Megbolu

Towards curbing the menace of Covid-19 pandemic in Nigeria, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and 31 other oil and gas companies have partnered to boost its intervention fund with $30 million.

The fund estimated at N11.4 billion will be used to combat the menace of coronavirus in the country.

The Group Managing Director, NNPC, Dr. Mele Kyari on Friday in Abuja, said the fund was in response to a national emergency at hand.

He stated that the fund is an industry-wide collaborative mainly from the upstream oil and gas sector towards intervening to help curb the pandemic and its spread in Nigeria.

Kyari further explained the intervention, which coupled with the ongoing federal government effort to support the nation’s healthcare delivery facilities to cope with the menace of the virus, involved partners under the umbrella of Upstream Oil & Gas Industry Intervention Initiative on COVID-19.

He also buttressed that under the arrangement, the fund would be deployed to meet three important emergencies.

The emergencies, the NNPC chief executive said include the provision of medical consumables, deployment of logistics and in-patient support systems and delivery of medical infrastructure.

Kyari further stated that the support initiative would be delivered in phases starting from Friday.

He reiterated; “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”.

However, the chief executive listed some of the companies involved in the intervention, which are Niger Delta Petroleum Resource Limited, Oando Oil Limited, Oriental Energy Resources Limited, Pillar Oil Limited, Platform Petroleum Limited, and Seplat Petroleum Development Company.

Others are; Shoreline Natural Resources, SunTrust Oil Company, Vertex Energy Limited, Waltersmith Petroman Oil Limited and Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum Limited respectively.

Editing by ‘Biodun Soyele