Fuel Scarcity Looms as commuters and motorists, thrown into worry

Image: Nairametrics

Long queues have returned to Lagos filling stations, causing panic among Lagosians. Across several filling stations on Tuesday morning, many retail stations were closed, and the ones that opened were filled with long queues, creating gridlock.

Although the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited has not reacted to the developing situation, trends show that this may be due to the flood.

Already, petrol scarcity is biting harder in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and environs due to what is regarded as the biggest flood crisis in the country in a decade.

Now, this may be spreading faster to other parts of the country, as is evident from the development observed by this newspaper.

Yesterday, the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association (IPMAN) spokesperson, Mr Chinedu Ukadike, blamed the lingering scarcity on the delay in the arrival of product vessels.

He said this has led to a drop in the stock sufficiency level of the NNPC Limited but added that the vessels were just arriving.

“For us, the independent marketers, we are service oriented, and we normally buy our products from NNPC, private depots, and private tank farm owners and some of them are located in Lagos, Warri and Port Harcourt knowing fully well that we import petroleum products in this country, and most of these products are vessel driven depots, and they collect products from ships.

“Recently, NNPC and the PPMC, I think there is a shortfall in the sufficiency they have in stock because some of the mother vessels they are expecting are just arriving; there was a little delay and some of the logistics in handling charges in the depots, so these are the issues that have truncated the chain of supply.

“Because some of these mother vessels that were supposed to arrive Nigeria and be able to distribute and send to these private depots, there was a little delay in payments and receipts and NIMASA,” he said.

He noted that although the flood had subsided, some depots were out of stock.

Source: businesspost.ng

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