Birnin Kebbi Aviation Fuel Depot: Setting the records straight
It is always good to hear that evident improvements are taking place in one’s dear state, and the March 12, 2025, report by the Kebbi State Commissioner of Information and Culture, Yakubu Ahmed BK, on the commissioning of a dedicated 180,000 litres capacity Aviation Fuel Depot at the Sir Ahmadu Bello International Airport (SABIA), Birnin […]
It is always good to hear that evident improvements are taking place in one’s dear state, and the March 12, 2025, report by the Kebbi State Commissioner of Information and Culture, Yakubu Ahmed BK, on the commissioning of a dedicated 180,000 litres capacity Aviation Fuel Depot at the Sir Ahmadu Bello International Airport (SABIA), Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi State, is one such example.
However, his mode of presentation on the significance of the said fuel depot has been grossly exaggerated beyond what is practicable. Granted, government news handlers have this general tendency to want to always make their principal look good at every opportunity, but even that needs to be done with some reasonable degree of decorum, which has sadly not been the case here.
To a very large extent, the commissioner may have achieved his primary objective of portraying his principal to the teeming familiar crowd of the gullible ones out there in the intended larger-than-life fashion. But to that same extent, he has also exposed his manifest lack of understanding and appreciation of the aviation sector, especially as it relates to aircraft refueling operations and the strict sets of rules and procedures guiding it.
I would like to correct some of the obvious errors in his entire presentation on the said aviation fuel depot at SABIA. To do that, we need to dispense with his ludicrous claims about the reported transformation of SABIA “from an unrecognised terminal to a hub of global aviation where flights now land not just for pilgrims, but also for refueling from various international destinations”.
An online dictionary source defines an “international hub” as a “… central location, often an airport or a port, that serves as a major point of connection for international travel, trade, or logistics, facilitating the movement of people or goods between different countries”.
The question then is, when exactly did SABIA, Birnin Kebbi become an international hub, or a hub for global aviation, to use his exact words? Apart from the annual Hajj airlift operations involving a few dedicated flights as approved by the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), and perhaps the occasional chartered Umrah flights here and there, which other international airlines land in Birnin Kebbi? Which destinations do those flights connect from there?
Secondly, having headed the nationwide refueling operations of a major oil marketer for a number of years, during which I also doubled as the Secretary of the Aviation Managers Forum of the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN), I should certainly know a thing or two about the subject.
The aviation industry is one of the most regulated industries in the world for obvious reasons, and aircraft refueling operations are no less so. There are strict standards, processes and procedures guiding the establishment and operation of aviation depots, which the industry regulators and the airlines themselves do not joke with.
That is precisely why there are mandatory stipulated daily early morning checks in place that must be carried out by the jet fuel suppliers at their respective depots, along with the usual parameter tests at the foot of the aircraft that must be witnessed by the airline representatives before each refueling operation. The international airlines, on their part, do also carry out scheduled annual or spot inspection audits at the depots to ascertain their continuing adherence to the stipulated standards for such operations.
Even before such routine visits by the airline customers happen, the IATA Fuel Quality Pool (IFQP) inspectors, comprising a group of airlines that actively share fuel inspection workload and reports globally, must have inspected and certified your depot handling and refueling operations and processes and published their findings on the International Air Transport Association (IATA) portal for all member airlines to see. The initial and routine annual IFQP inspections are done using the Joint Inspection Group (JIG) standards, which is an international organisation that monitors and ensures that the transportation and storage of jet fuel in a safe manner across the world’s largest airports.
The IFQP inspection and eventual certification, without which no international airline will ever patronise your refueling operations, remains one of the most eagerly anticipated and challenging periods for any aviation manager. It will be great to hear from the Commissioner when that took place in the case of the new aviation fuel mini depot at SABIA.
There is also the small matter of the constant availability of the product that, in addition to regular and timely replenishment, can only be guaranteed by the relative size of a marketer’s secondary storage facility at the airports. The relative proximity of the secondary storage to the primary storage facilities is also a huge factor. And the farther away one is from the other, the bigger the secondary storage necessarily needs to be to guarantee a reasonable stockholding of a minimum of 6 days’ supply to your contracted airline customers on average at any point in time.
To address the all-important airport storage issue in a more cost-effective and holistic manner, marketers have been known to come together to jointly build and operate shared common storage like the Joint Users Hydrant Installation (JUHI) at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, and the Joint Aviation Facility (JAF) at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport in Kano. Just recently, on October 2024 17, the Aviation Minister, Festus Keyamo, commissioned the long-awaited 15 million litres capacity JUHI 2 in Ikeja, which adds to the JUHI 1 and the respective marketers’ individual storage there.
Again, the standard practice is that all airlines, both local and international, do have in place executed fuel supply contracts with the respective marketers that are renewed annually, even though some small operators and one-time visitors do make ad hoc purchases occasionally. The airlines execute such contracts with more than one marketer to spread their risks, as opposed to putting all their eggs in a single basket by way of having only one dedicated supplier.
That way, in the event that one supplier runs out of Jet Fuel or Aviation Turbine Kerosene (ATK), as it is also called, the other(s) can easily supply them. The suppliers must always put them on notice well in advance in the event of any anticipated supply disruptions, in order not to disrupt their schedules. For international airlines specifically, they usually have programmed slots on specific days of the week for their suppliers, and any of them can cover for the other in the event of supply disruptions affecting either of them. In the (un)likely event of a general scarcity affecting all marketers, however, the airlines are usually notified to come with enough jet fuel in their tanks and only top up with just about enough volumes to fly to the next destination to take in more.
I, therefore, struggle to rationalise the outrageous claim by the Kebbi Commissioner of Information and Culture where he stressed for emphasis that “it is on record that aircraft on international routes land at the airport for the sole purpose of refueling and moving on”. Apart from the requirement of the IFQP certification and the prerequisite of a subsisting business relationship between the depot operator at SABIA and the individual airlines that are both required to make that possible, the miserly 180,000 litres capacity storage does not even support such a claim. More so when there are numerous other marketers-owned and operated storage facilities with combined capacities running into millions of litres at the nation’s major international airports in Abuja, Kano, Lagos and Port Harcourt, where these airlines usually land and operate.
Plus, the average ATK volumes consumed by these international flights in a single refueling operation is such that SABIA’s 180,000-litre capacity storage will not even be attractive enough. Just by way of illustration, a DHL Cargo flight from Lagos to Johannesburg will take an average of 65,000 litres of jet fuel during refueling, for example; a British Airways flight to London Heathrow will require around 70,000 litres; just as a Delta Airlines non-stop flight from Lagos to Atlanta will consume between 120,000 to 130,000 litres. Pray, what will be left for the depot operators’ local airline customers after a single refueling operation?
The fact that one or two local airlines flying into Sokoto might have run into a possible stockout situation at the Sir Abubakar III International Airport and detoured to Birnin Kebbi to take a few thousands of litres is not enough justification for making such wild claims about international airlines refueling there.
In conclusion, I am saying all this just to let the author understand and recognise the untenable slant to his wide-off-the-mark claims, and to urge him to please desist from making such embarrassing submissions that are not backed by logic or facts in the future.
Usman can be reached through [email protected]