As ongoing acute petrol shortage enters the sixth week, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has again attributed it to “distribution challenges”.
The current petrol scarcity, the third in 2024, began early
July with NNPC attributing it to logistics challenges faced in the transfer of
the product from mother vessel to daughter vessels.
The company had said: “The NNPC Ltd wishes to state that the
fuel queues seen in the FCT and some parts of the country, were as a result of
disruption of ship-to-ship (STS) transfer of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), also
known as petrol, between Mother Vessels and Daughter Vessels resulting from
recent thunderstorm.
“The adverse weather condition has also affected berthing at
jetties, truck load-outs and transportation of products to filling stations,
causing a disruption in station supply logistics.
“The NNPC Ltd also states that due to flammability of
petroleum products and in compliance with the Nigerian Meteorological Agency
(NIMET) regulations, it was impossible to load petrol during rainstorms and
lightning”.
But with the shortage not showing any sign of improvement,
the national oil company in a two paragraph statement on Sunday said it
regretted the situation.
NNPC Limited Chief Corporate Communications Officer, Mr
Olufemi Soneye said: “The NNPC Ltd regrets the tightness in fuel supply
witnessed in some parts of Lagos and the FCT, which is as a result of
distribution challenges.
“The Company further urges motorists to shun panic buying as
it is working round the clock with relevant stakeholders to restore normalcy”.
Checks around Abuja Central Area yesterday showed that
queues remained long at very few stations opened to consumers.
Outside the city centre, the situation remained dire with
outlets operated by Independent marketers raising their pump price to N950 per
litre against N720 per litre before the shortage began over a month ago.
The Public Relations Officer, Independent Petroleum
Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, Chief Chinedu Ukadike told Vanguard
the marketers had not received the product for some time.
Ukadike explained that it might not be unconnected with the
impending delivery of premium motor spirit, pms, from the Dangote Refinery.
He noted that marketers were threading softly in order not
to incur losses if the petrol price crashes as a result of supply from the
refinery.
He said: “Supply has become epileptic again and we have not
received adequate supply in recent times, remember we still depend on the
importation of products. Once there is any shortage in supply or logistic
problem or procrastination, then the impact is almost immediate.
“I also believe that since Dangote announced its petrol
supply intention, those supplying NNPC are skeptical of bringing in products
because they don’t want to incur the losses which they suffered when Dangote
entered the market and slashed the price of AGO (Automated Gas Oil popularly
known as diesel).
“These are market indices and someone has to be careful not
to plunge itself into unnecessary deficit. For us independent marketers, most
of the products come from NNPC Retails but the company has not supplied us with
any product. They allocate products to tank farm owners”.
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com