Fuel scarcity worsens in Lagos, Abuja, others as hawkers sell 1,500/litre

Queues for petrol have become longer at few filling stations in Lagos, Abuja and some major cities where the product is available to dispense.

Many have had to travel long distances to buy the commodity as most filling stations are not open for operation claiming that they have run out of petrol.

A report by The Punch on Monday stated that many depots for premium motor spirit (petrol) are currently dry.

Indeed, it reported that there was loading of fuel trucks in the Apapa depots as of Sunday.

It quoted a depot operator as saying that there was no fuel in almost all the depots on Sunday after the little available was supplied on Saturday.

Many motorists and those in need of petrol for their vehicles and power generators for electricity have had to resort to buying from the black market and hawkers vending the product along the road.

They sell petrol between N1,300 and N1,500.

On Sunday, from Iyana-Ipaja to Oshodi, only one filling station (Conoil at Airport junction) was open to sell fuel. And this was only in the night.

According to The Punch report, on Sunday in Abuja, 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.

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“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.”

Executive Secretary of the Major Energies Marketers Association of Nigeria, Clement Isong, also said 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 said.

NNPCL speaks

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd.) has explained that the fuel supply and distribution problem was caused by a hitch in the discharge operations of a couple of vessels.

Olufemi Soneye, the chief corporate communications officer, NNPC Ltd., made this known on Saturday in a statement while reacting to the current queues and scarcity being witnessed in Lagos and the Federal Capital Territory.

“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,” Mr Soneye said.

Fuel scarcity worsens in Lagos, Abuja, others as hawkers sell 1,500/litre