Fuel scarcity spreads

Fuel shortages that sprang up late on Thursday continued over the weekend with pump price shooting up 30% in many towns across the country. Daily Trust correspondents report that marketers are now selling petrol between N105 and N115 per litre up from the official price of N87. Commuters in Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Imo, Kaduna, Niger, Nasarawa, […]

Fuel shortages that sprang up late on Thursday continued over the weekend with pump price shooting up 30% in many towns across the country.
 Daily Trust correspondents report that marketers are now selling petrol between N105 and N115 per litre up from the official price of N87.
Commuters in Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Imo, Kaduna, Niger, Nasarawa, Kwara, Katsina and Maiduguri pay more and endure long queues to top up their tanks.
The situation was made worse as very few stations were dispensing while others closed down.
There has been no official reason for the scarcity yet but some sources in the industry said the scarcity could be attributed to the serious reduction of the volume of PMS marketers import into the country due to the  mountain of debt owed them by the Federal government under the Petroleum Support Fund.
Our correspondent gathered that the fuel queues were reinforced by the depletion of fuel volumes in most depot in Lagos.
The source said the marketers prefered to import Diesel (AGO) or Jet Oil because they could sell it direct to the customer and recover their cost since the two products were already deregulated.
The government had already given its words to pay the sum of N264 billion it currently owes the marketers this month.
Executive Secretary of Major Oil Marketers Association of  Nigeria (MOMAN), Mr. Obafemi Lawore disclosed in Lagos recently after a meeting with petroleum minister and minister of finance that most marketers and companies had reached their limit, and  could not get fund from banks any longer due to the outstanding subsidy payment.
“Stock level of products in out tank farms is pretty low but we are going to start importing product and loading all product within our facility to filling station to wet the country with products.
“Minister of Finance, Minister of Petroleum Resources, CBN Governor are discussion on how to address issues of foreign exchange which also encourage us to commence importation,” Olawore added.
He said that government had assured payment differential on product margin to marketers from products importation.
In the major cities, black marketers made brisk business by selling the fuel at between N200 and N250 per litre.
In Lagos most passengers were stranded due to the scarcity of buses on the streets as most of them were seen on the queues to buy the product in most of the stations monitored in the metropolis.
There are indications that the scarcity may spill to neighbouring states in few days and may last a little longer.
But a Manager at the Oando station in Maryland in Lagos disclosed to our correspondent that depot operators were rationing stock.
He said his depot received 33,000 litres of fuel on Sunday and was not sure of replenishing same due to the depleting stock level.
“I cannot say exactly what is happening but from the depots we observe they are managing the available stock” he said.
Some of the stations along Ikorodu road, Lagos Island, Ikeja and its environs dispensed the product on Saturday but had stopped selling when our correspondent visited the stations on Sunday.
Forte, Mobil and Conoil filling stations around Fedeyi did not sell to customers. A filling attendant in one of the stations said the station was still waiting to replenish its stock.
It is expected that commuters and motorists would face hectic time when work resumes today.
In Abuja, the long lines first appeared in some filling stations in the cities on Friday and continued till yesterday.
Oando, Conoil, and NIPCO, filling stations at Airport road, Jabi and Utako were seen selling the product yesterday, prompting motorists to engage in an endless struggle for space to buy fuel.
Outside the city most motorists complained that some filling stations had already inflated prices up to N106 from the regulated N87 per litre price while stations which sold at N87 requested for bribe from motorists.
Spokesperson for the Abuja branch of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Mr. Saidu Mohammed Bulama could not be reached for comments on what the DPR is doing to sanction erring petrol marketers.
In Ilorin, Kwara State’s capital,  the fuel crisis which broke out on Tuesday, last week has worsened as many independent filling stations now sell above the official N87, investigations by Daily Trust have shown.
However, many filling stations closed, claiming they had run of stock.
In Kano and Kaduna most of the Major Oil Marketers’ stations and the NNPC stations were not dispensing the fuel. The few stations that sold the products belong to the Independent marketers.
Black marketers sold fuel to drivers at exorbitant price. For instance 10 liters of petrol has been selling for around N2,000 and N2,400.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporations (NNPC) said about 688 million litres of petrol was injected into the market yesterday to cushion the scarcity.
The move, according to the Corporation, is to arrest any short fall that may have been triggered by the unnecessary fears of an imminent scarcity of the product.
 A statement by spokesman for the Corporation, Ohi Alegbe called on members of the public not to engage in panic purchase and hoarding of petroleum products as it was working with all downstream industry stakeholders to eliminate the noticeable artificially induced fuel queues in some fuel stations.
The NNPC said the development was necessary in order to ensure continuous importation of products into the country with a view to averting scarcity of fuel.