Fuel queues worsen despite 1.4 billion litres supply

bibing

Despite a guaranteed national supply of 1,413,366,814.66 litres of petrol for November 2015, the queues for premium motor spirit at some filling stations across the country grew worse on Friday.

In their national stock analysis released in Abuja on Friday, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and its subsidiary, Pipelines and Product Marketing Company, stated that the country currently has 656.38 million litres of PMS which will last for at least 16 days.

The agencies also stated that the expected import of the product by both the PPMC and other importers till the end of November 2015 was 756.99 million litres, adding that when summed with what the country currently has in stock, a total of over 1.4 billion litres of petrol is guaranteed.

Despite the figures by the NNPC and its subsidiary, both agencies seem not to actually know why many petrol stations across the country were still characterised by heavy queues by motorists longing to buy petrol.

Although they attributed the long queues to panic buying by motorists and the refusal of some stations to sell petrol, they, maintained that the country had enough supply.

Our correspondent observed that the search for petrol in Abuja, Nasarawa and Kaduna grew intense on Friday. Hundreds of motorists queued at the two petrol stations located in front of the headquarters of the NNPC on Friday, leading to vehicular traffic on the road.

Meanwhile, some petrol stations in Abuja and neighbouring Kaduna and Nasarawa states took advantage of the development to sell products at rates higher than the stipulated price of N87 per litre.

Motorists in Nasarawa State complained of paying as high as N120 per litre for petrol, noting that it was mainly NNPC retail outlets and other major marketers that sold the product at the regulated price. The same story was told by motorists in Kaduna.

The Executive Director, Commercial, PPMC, Mr. Justin Ezeala, explained that Nigeria had enough supply. He said it was sad to note that some petrol stations were not dispensing, a development that had also contributed to the seeming fuel scarcity.

According to him, some governors had set up task forces to monitor where petrol trucks go to in their states to address the scarcity problem.

Ezeala said, “Some governors have set up task forces. The governors of Ekiti, Oyo and Kaduna have set up task forces and we send them list of our loadings every day so that they can send their people to go and monitor these things. As long as we don’t track supply to their destinations, we are going to have these challenges.”

He charged Nigerians to demand from filling stations why they were not selling petrol if it had been established that such outlets were supplied products.

Ezeala stated that stations that sell above the regulated N87 price should be reported to the DPR or NNPC, stressing that the agencies would not hesitate to sanction such marketers.

Source: Punch