Fuel scarcity: 23m litres of petrol trapped in Lagos depot – IPMAN

About 23 million litres of premium Motor Spirits (PMS) otherwise known as petrol have been trapped in an oil depot which belongs to Capital Oil in Lagos, which is aggravating the current fuel scarcity, according to the Independent Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN). Speaking yesterday after the National Exco Meeting in Abuja, IPMAN president, Chief […]

About 23 million litres of premium Motor Spirits (PMS) otherwise known as petrol have been trapped in an oil depot which belongs to Capital Oil in Lagos, which is aggravating the current fuel scarcity, according to the Independent Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN).
Speaking yesterday after the National Exco Meeting in Abuja, IPMAN president, Chief Chinedu Okoronkwo said the product has been paid for by the marketers since last eight weeks but they could not access it from the owner of the Capital Oil. But the company denied this.
He said the product which belongs to NNPC but stored in Capital Oil depot is part of the reasons for the recent scarcity in the country, adding that all efforts to recover the products by his members proved abortive.
Chief Okoronkwo said the financial value of the product worth over N2billion and is currently depriving his members of the resources to distribute the fuel in various locations of the country.
“Sometime in 2011, there was this peace process in IPMAN, where everybody came together as one indivisible organization. Now Ifeanyi Uba was the proponent of this peace move and we have now discovered why he decided to make that peace. “Sixty percent of our allocation was signed off to be discharged at his tank farm. Members you will agree with me that since this agreement, our members have suffered untold hardship. “From the paper I have and from our people in South West Zone, over N2billion worth of product is trapped in his tank farm. This is NNPC product not his own product and we are now asking questions because the agreement of 60 percent has ended with the regime of our former president Aminu,” he said. He urged the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to stop sending its allocation of premium motor spirit (PMS) to Capital Oil tank farm.
Reactions of NNPC and Uba: In his reaction, Mr Ifeanyi Uba said the allegations against him were not true because the IPMAN members didn’t pay him any money.
On his part, the NNPC spokesman Mr Ohi Alegbe when contacted told Daily Trust that he did not have details of the deal but that he would forward this reporter’s request to the Pipeline and Products Marketing Company (PPMC), a subsidiary of the Corporation in charge of the product distribution for clarification and will get back later.