There
was fear of a fresh round of fuel scarcity on Thursday as many filling stations
in parts of Lagos and Ogun states did not sell Premium Motor Spirit,
popularly known as petrol, to motorists as they had run out of the product.
Marketers
have in recent months been relying on supply from the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation, which is now responsible for about 90 per cent of the
importation of the product and sells to marketers at N131 per litre.
The
NNPC, in its latest monthly report, said it remained the major importer of
petroleum products, especially the PMS, in spite of liberalisation of petroleum
products and government’s intervention meant to ease the marketers’ access to
foreign exchange.
In
the past, marketers were importing 70 per cent of the products, while the NNPC
was bringing in the balance, being the supplier of last resort.
A
source, who is an executive in a Lagos-based oil marketing company, said, “There have been supply issues in recent days as the supply
from the NNPC could not meet the demand from marketers. Most of the marketers
are not importing the product largely because of foreign exchange problems.
“Everybody
has been rationing the little supply they are getting from the NNPC. Now, there
are queues in some filling stations. The government should make forex available
for the marketers to import the product.”
Motorists
queued for petrol at the few filling stations that dispensed the product on
Thursday, while some independent oil marketers refused to sell petrol to
consumers.
Many
motorists, who were heading for their places of work and trade, were caught
unawares by the sudden decision of many of the filling stations not to sell the
product, while the few ones that dispensed the PMS did so from one or two
pumps.
However,
the NNPC said the pockets of fuel queues in Lagos and some other parts of the
country would soon disappear as it had up to 36-day sufficiency of the PMS.
It
stated that mild queues were sighted in parts of Abuja on Wednesday, but noted
that the queues had disappeared by Thursday.
The
Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, NNPC, Mr. Ndu Ughamadu,
told one of our correspondents that the queues were largely due to
panic-buying.
He
said, “There is no cause for alarm and nothing like petrol price increase. The
group managing director of the NNPC addressed some executives today where he
said the country had 36-day sufficiency. If you have up to 36 days’
sufficiency, then what’s the need for such panic?”
When
asked why some independent marketers were not dispensing petrol, he replied,
“They have been lifting from us and all our depots are on. The independent and
major marketers are lifting from us. The key issue is to look at the level of
product sufficiency that a country has and we are making sure that Nigeria is
wet with products.
“Even
yesterday (Wednesday), some areas in Abuja experienced pockets of queues; but
today, all the queues have disappeared. So, the Lagos queues or wherever you
find queues in Nigeria will disappear too, because we have enough product to go
round.
“The
queues are mainly because consumers tend to react to any rumour; if some
marketers say they are not going to do this or that, people will start rushing.
But we want to assure Nigerians that there is no cause for alarm.”
Source: Punch
Tags
Business