As ongoing acute petrol shortage enters the sixth week, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited NNPC 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”.
