Many depots for Premium Motor Spirit, 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.
The PUNCH reports that black marketers have taken advantage of the situation, selling as high as N1,300 per litre and N1,500 per litre in parts of Lagos and Ogun states.
Long queues started building up at fuel stations in Abuja and Lagos on Friday and have persisted.
On Saturday, while reacting to the long queues and scarcity in some parts of the country, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited said the tightness in fuel supply and distribution was caused by a hitch in the discharge operations of a couple of vessels.
“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.”
However, despite the assurance by the NNPC, the situation worsened as checks by our correspondents nationwide on Sunday showed that there were long queues at several filling stations across major cities.
No loading at Apapa
The PUNCH gathered that there was no loading of trucks in the Apapa depots as of Sunday.
A depot operator, who did not want his name in print, told our correspondent that there was no fuel in almost all the depots on Sunday after the little available was supplied on Saturday.
The source confirmed that the depots are dry, saying “supply gets late thereby affecting product load out.”
It was observed on Sunday in Abuja, the capital city that while the few filling stations that dispensed the product sold it at between N660/litre and N800/litre, black marketers took advantage of the scarcity to hike the price to about N1,200/litre, depending on the area of purchase.
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 normalised 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 N700/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 N800 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.”
On his part, the Executive Secretary of the Major Energies Marketers Association of Nigeria, Clement Isong, also confirmed that there had been low stock but could not tell when the situation would improve.
“The problem is that the stock is low because there have been some challenges in bringing the product into the country from the vessels. We are all queuing up for products, everybody is looking for the product from the NNPC. Only the NNPC knows when normalcy will be restored. It is the sole supplier,” he stated.
The spokesperson for the NNPC, Olufemi Soneye, did not respond to inquiries on Sunday on when the fuel supply situation would improve up till when this report was filed.
N1,500/litre in Ogun, Lagos
Our correspondents who visited parts of Lagos and Ogun states on Sunday reported that many fuel stations did not open for business while the handful that opened had long queues of vehicles and people buying in jerrycans. Black marketers had a field day selling to impatient motorists at between N1,200 and N1,500 per litre, depending on the location.
A bus driver, Elijah Sunday, who spoke to one of our correspondents at the Ketu motor garage in Lagos, lamented the struggle to get PMS.
“We have been finding it hard to get fuel for the past couple of days and it’s expensive, so, we had to increase the rates,” he said.
A minibus driver plying the Eko Hotel-CMS route in Lagos insisted on N300 instead of N200, citing the fuel scarcity.
Fuel queues were observed at PM Petroleum at Cele Bus Stop along the Oshodi-Apapa Expressway. At the North West filling station close to CharlyBoy Bus Stop at Gbagada, Lagos and the NNPC station at Ogudu, there was a long line of vehicles.
At Petrocam, a filling station in Ajao Estate, Lagos fuel sold for N780 per litre.
