Long queues have started building back up at some fuel stations in Abuja and Lagos over the weekend and into Monday morning. Marketers claim many depots for Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), popularly called petrol, are currently dry, leading to fuel scarcity and attendant queues in Lagos, Ogun, parts of Abuja, Niger, and some other states across the country.
Black marketers are, therefore, taking advantage of the situation, selling as high as ₦1,300 per litre and ₦1,500 per litre in parts of Lagos and Ogun states.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) on Saturday, tried to put a downward pressure on the panic with a statement saying tightness in fuel supply and distribution was caused by a hitch in the discharge operations of a couple of vessels but marketers say they have not seen any signs of improvement.
“The NNPC Ltd wishes to state that the tightness in fuel supply and distribution witnessed in some parts of Lagos and the FCT is as a result of a hitch in the discharge operations of a couple of vessels,” the NNPC Chief Corporate Communications Officer, Olufemi Soneye, said.
The company added that it was “working round the clock with all stakeholders to resolve the situation and restore normalcy in the operations.”
A depot operator, who pleaded anonymity, said there was no fuel in almost all the depots on Sunday after the little available was supplied on Saturday.
He said the depots are dry, saying “supply gets late thereby affecting product load out.”
This came as oil marketers revealed that they were also queuing up to load petrol, adding that most depots lacked stock to sell.
“We, marketers, too are surprised that we couldn’t get fuel as we used to get at depots. We were worried too; we didn’t know the cause until the NNPC came out with a release on Saturday. Let’s just believe what the NNPC said, that they would arrest the situation,” the National Vice President of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Hammed Fashola, told one of our correspondents.
“I believe that within this week, everything will be normalized by the time they push products to the depots for marketers to pick from. Ours is to pick from the depots, take it into our stations, and dispense to the public. But for now, most of the depots are dry. The implication of that is that the stations will be dry too. Most of our members have run out of stock. That is the cause of the queues we are experiencing now,” Fashola added.
He noted that marketers were still buying PMS “at a price that is above ₦700/litre from the private depots.”
“We are not yet getting direct supply from the NNPC as we are supposed to. What we are getting is so small compared to our population. That is why we are forced to go to the third parties, the private depot owners, and they are not helping matters with the kind of price they are putting out there.
“That is why independent marketers sell around ₦800 or so. Until we address this issue of direct supply, there will be issues. We keep shouting to the NNPC to look at that area properly because something is fundamentally wrong with our distribution channel and until they correct that, we will continue to have this issue of fuel scarcity.”
