The fuel supply hitch appears to have improved in some parts of Lagos yesterday as some of the filling stations visited by Daily Sun were dispensing products.
But, while the major marketers sold at the approved retail price of N145 per litre, the same could not be said of filling stations belonging to the independent marketers.
The availability of products at fuel stations belonging to both major and independent marketers have led to reduced queues, helping to douse tension among motorists.
The decision of the independent marketers to peg price of a litre of petrol at N200 per litre may not be unconnected with their earlier claims that NNPC was not supplying members of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) enough products.
And in a bid to keep their filling stations wet with products, IPMAN members had to resort to getting products from third parties, which upon getting to their filling stations could not be sold at the approved retail price of N145 per litre.
IPMAN claims that its members control about 60 per cent of the retail outlets, leaving the majors with 40 per cent.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) says it has successfully cleared petrol queues in Abuja and Lagos with the commitment to increase truck-outs to other states to restore normalcy to the petrol supply and distribution across the country.
Group Managing Director of the Corporation, Dr. Maikanti Baru, made this disclosure Friday after visiting some filling stations in Abuja.
“As far as truck out is concerned, we have more than doubled the number of trucks that are going out into the country. Yesterday (Thursday), we loaded and distributed products from coastal and strategic inland depots like Jos.
We loaded I,733 trucks Thursday, and the actual normal number of trucks we required to keep the country wet is about 700, but we have been doing 800 to 850 trucks before the scarcity. We have stepped up the number of truck-outs to 1,733 as a minimum and we have sustained this for a week and there will be more than enough products for motorists in the weeks ahead,” Baru revealed.
The NNPC helmsman said the Corporation would remain focused at ensuring that all the other state capitals are wet with petrol latest by Sunday.
Baru said that the petrol scarcity was self-inflicted following the sharp practices of some unscrupulous marketers who took to hoarding and diversion of the product.
“We have maintained our position that this scarcity is self-inflicted by marketers. The NNPC has more than 30 day sufficiency of supply of petroleum products, especially PMS and at the current consumption rate of about 27 to 28million litres per day, we should be very comfortable until the end of January 2018 even if we don’t import a drop of petrol,” he added.
He appealed to marketers who have diverted petroleum products to please be mindful of their brothers and sisters and stop profiteering, stressing that they bought petrol at N133.28k per litre apart from their profit margin and a transportation cost of N7.20k per litre.
He urged the marketers to listen to the voice of reasoning to avoid the long arm of the law catching up with them, adding that the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) have been mandated to invoke the law against any defaulting marketers.
He appealed to motorists to cooperate with the NNPC in restoring normalcy to the petrol situation by reporting marketers who sell PMS above N145 per litre to the emergency lines of the DPR and NSCDC.
|Sun
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