Before I proceed, let me first
start by briefly presenting Total
Nigeria Plc. Total Nigeria Plc is a part of the Total Group, a global
integrated energy company with operations in more than 150 countries and ranked
4th among the major players in the global energy industry.
We were incorporated as a
private company in April 1956 and got listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange in
1979. For over 50 years, we have consistently pioneered highly innovative and
top quality products and services.
We are the market leader in the
downstream oil and gas sector and our activities include the importation,
storage and distribution of petroleum products such as fuels, lubricants, and
LPG through retail, industrial and aviation channels of sales.
Our commitment to better energy
has impacted on investments in over 550 service stations, 3 lubricant blending
plants in Delta, Kaduna and Lagos states with a combined capacity of 77KT, as
well as several Lubricant storage facilities across the country.
We recently launched the first
solar-powered service station in West Africa, Total service station, Onigbagbo,
Lagos as part of efforts aimed at providing energy solutions that are efficient
and environmentally friendly.
Total Nigeria’s Lubricant
blending plants and depots have been awarded IS0 14001 Environmental Management
Systems certification and ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management Systems
certification, while all its major products have received NIS certifications
from Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON). Our Quality and Environmental
Management System ensure that our processes are in line with international best
practices.
Our International Small Site
Safety Rating System (ISSSRS) certification further elucidates our commitment
to conducting our sites’ (depots and plants) operations in line with
internationally recognized safety regulations.
Lubrication is a basic
requirement for modern societies and its use span across major market segments
like Automotive, manufacturing, agriculture, and power generation. Essentially
almost every aspect of modern society requires some form of lubrication.
The potential in the Nigerian
lubricant market is enormous. Effective realization will depend on the ability
of the authorities to provide the enabling environments and key amongst them
are:
Fully equipped monitoring body to ensure that lubricant standards are upheld by
all manufacturers and/or marketers
Curbing the activities of adulterators and counterfeiters.
Better public infrastructure
Policies to ensure healthy
competition (Proliferation and influx of imported low quality finished
lubricants leading to under-utilization of available local capacity)
Substandard
and adulterated lubricants cause substantive damage to engines and equipments,
and subsequent failure of equipment. These in turn lead to the following
consequences;
Loss of man hours and machine time
Loss of Job
Inefficiencies
Environmental pollution
Health hazards
Loss of business and destruction
of the source of livelihood of genuine practitioners in the industry
As such, it is important for
organizations and lubricant users to ensure that only genuine lubricants are
used in their equipments.
Genuine lubricants can be
differentiated from adulterated and/or counterfeit ones through several means,
PACKAGING
Quality of the container – smoothness of the plastic/drum, shape and size.
Quality of label (resolution)
Cleanliness of the packaging
Logo on the caps
Tamper proof seals
CONTENT
Color
Smell
Presence of deposits
Viscosity
Laboratory analysis
PRICE
Too cheap to be true
Huge gap between company
prices and offered prices
SOURCE
Delivery from an unknown source
Address given at last minute
Supplier using name for
payment (One man business)
In summary, it is pertinent for all
stakeholders to come together to find a lasting solution to this menace of
lubricant adulteration and counterfeiting to plug the economic drain.
No comments:
Post a Comment