Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, has stepped up collaboration with Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria, MOMAN and other downstream industry players to end the resurgence of fuel queues in some major cities across the country, especially Lagos and environs. The NNPC in a statement signed by Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Ohi Alegbe, stated that it has secured the commitment of leadership of MOMAN for effective collaboration in this regard and assured that queues will disappear in the days ahead as supplies are ramped up across the country.
The corporation noted that to achieve this, truckout to filling stations in the Lagos area has been Convenincreased from the regular 245 to 295 trucks per day (9.7 million litres), while truckout to fuel stations in Abuja from Suleja depot has been stepped up to 210 trucks per day (6.9 million litres) from the regular supply of 160 trucks. The NNPC explained that similar increment in supply volume has been activated in Port Harcourt, Calabar, Kano and Kaduna areas to ensure seamless availability of petroleum products across every nook and cranny of the country. While appealing for understanding and support from members of the public, the NNPC assured that it was doing everything possible to end the prevailing challenges experienced by motorists, commuters and the general public in accessing petrol. “Within the last 48 hours we have received six cargoes of petrol (270 million litres) and beginning from March 1, we shall begin to receive one cargo of petrol every day (45 million litres),’’ the corporation stated. The NNPC also announced that the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, has directed the full activation of an Intra-Ministerial Joint Monitoring Task Force made up of officials of Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, and the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company, PPMC, to ensure and enforce compliance to laid down rules and regulations governing the supply and distribution of petroleum products.
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In Warri, Delta State, consumers, including marketers of petroleum products have bemoaned the incessant scarcity of products, especially premium motor spirit, PMS. This is coming barely a month after fuel stations around Warri and its environs, started selling PMS also known as petrol, at the approved Federal Government pump price of N86.50, after over a month-long hike of the product. National Mirror observed that motorists have been enduring long queues and spending quality time daily at the few petrol stations where the product is been sold at N150, in the past two weeks. Disclosing this yesterday in Warri, an independent marketer, who spoke in confidence, said the scarcity is due to the largest private depot in Warri, Matrix Energies, being out of stock. According to the source, this situation has made distribution of products from other depots inadequate and smaller depots, which still have products, have seized the chance to make extra profits by selling at exorbitant rates to marketers, forcing fuel stations to sell above official pump price.
It would be recalled that members of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, and the Petroleum Tanker Drivers, PTD, in Edo and Delta states, went on a protest against the hike of ex-depot price by an oil depot in Oghara, Delta State. “The situation is always like this each time Matrix Energy is out of stock. There will always be this kind of scarcity. This is because they are the biggest depot here and without their input, the other ones can’t meet the demands. “The worst part is that, these other ones always want to exploit the situation by illegally inflating their ex-depot price, which forces us to sell above the approved pump price because there’s no way I’ll buy product for more than N100 per litre and then sell at N86:50,” the marketer explained. Meanwhile, the management of Matrix Energy has confirmed that its Quarter 1 allocation had been exhausted, but plans to restock. Chief Operating Officer of Matrix Energy Limited, said the company however regretted the situation, adding: “It is true that we are out of stock, we exhausted our Q1 allocation and are working on getting new allocation very soon. I am sure things will be far better soon as we start selling again.”
