A recent investigation into another round of fuel scarcity in the country showed that members of the Independent Petroleum Marketers of Nigeria (IPMAN) no longer get supplies from NNPC, but currently source products from private depots at about N850, thus taking the pump price at near the N1, 000 mark.
An IPMAN official, Shina Amoo made this disclosure in a recent interview. The umbrella body of petrol marketing entities across parts of the country, with over 3,000 members and a substantial ownership of Nigeria’s filling stations, also accused the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited of not supplying sufficient products to members.
He attributed the current fuel scarcity to the lack of supply from NNPC, which has affected everyone, including private depots. “There is no supply anywhere. The available supply is poorly distributed. We have been raising concerns about this for a long time. “The products we are selling, we are getting them at premium. Virtually, all the locations we are buying the product’s from, they sell to us at the prices they wish to sell from the neighborhood of N750 to N850 all depends on the depots you’re buying from.
“We have been sorting from the private depots over the years. Instead of getting the product from NNPC at the rate of five sixty seven. None of us could get products from NNPC for the past two to three years,” he said.
Additionally, he noted that even if NNPC agrees to sell to marketers, there is a five-month wait for delivery, rendering the transaction ineffective.
“If we could get any from NNPC, when you pay your draft today, you may end up picking that product in the next three to five months so the profit would have been eroded away. So we all prefer to have been lining up in any private depot. The private depots sell at N830 to N850, that is the situations for now,” Amoo added.
Fuel scarcity has resurfaced in major cities such as Lagos and Abuja, with vehicles on long queues at the few filling stations that were seen dispensing petrol.
It was observed that major roads in major cities had reduced vehicular traffic, as many motorists were unable to fuel their vehicles. A number of NNPC-owned filling stations were completely closed, with some drivers saying they waited in vain for them to re-open. As at yesterday, fuel prices varied between N840 and N1,200 at different locations across the country.
Many filling stations attributed the scarcity to a lack of fuel distribution by marketers to their stations, though they could not explain the underlying cause of this distribution issue.
