Queues return as petrol supply drops

 

Motorists at Conoil filling station in National bus stop on the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway... on Tuesday.

Queues of motorists in desperate need of petrol resurfaced in Lagos, Ogun, Oyo and Kwara states on Tuesday, while the scarcity of the product worsened in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory following the drastic cut in supply.

Our correspondents gathered that following the inability of the Federal Government to fulfil its promise to pay the arrears of the subsidy claims, the marketers had significantly reduced supply to filling stations across the country.

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For instance, virtually all filling stations in Abuja did not dispense the product on Tuesday because the supply to the FCT had dropped by about four million litres.

In Lagos and Ogun states, motorists besieged the few filling stations that had the product to sell and the resultant queues affected free movement of vehicles on major highways.

It was learnt that the strike by the Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners and the threat by major oil marketers to stop importing fuel contributed to the scarcity.

In Abuja, thousands of residents waited for hours to get vehicles to their destinations, whereas most of the commercial and private vehicles queued at petrol filling stations that were not even opened for business.

One of our correspondents observed that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation mega station in Nyanya, a suburb of the FCT, sold the product at N110 per litre against the regulated price of N87. But even at that, it was difficult to get the product as the queues in front of the station stretched for kilometres.

The spokesperson for the Department of Petroleum Resources, Mr. Saidu Muhammed, explained that three factors contributed to the scarcity of petrol in the FCT.

He said, “There are three factors responsible for this. One, the strike by NARTO affected the movement of the product. Secondly, there is also a threat by major oil marketers that they may stop importing the product because the government has not paid their subsidy claims.

“To be candid, there has not been sufficient product supply coming out of the Suleja Depot. As of yesterday (Monday), we had about four million litres from the depot, whereas the sufficiency level needed to make Abuja wet is between seven and eight million litres. So, the supply is very limited. Fuel import is largely done by the PPMC, and to some extent, by the marketers. The PPMC should be able to say why the supply is not adequate, but in our position as a regulator, we have been able to establish that what came out of the depot yesterday (Monday) was four million litres as against seven or eight million litres needed.

“What came out on Friday was 5.3 million litres; what came out on Saturday was about six million litres and there was no lifting on Sunday. It is not our job as a regulator to saturate the market; the best we can do is to make sure that people are not hoarding, or divert the product from one location to another, and to ensure that the product is not sold outside the regulated price.”

However, the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, NNPC, Mr. Ohi Alegbe, said the corporation had enough stock of petrol to service the country for 27 days at a consumption rate of 40 million litres per day.

He said the NNPC had sufficient stock of petrol at its coastal depots in Port Harcourt, Warri and Calabar, besides the stock in the national strategic reserves.

Alegbe explained that the distribution hitch was due to the strike action by NARTO and the Petroleum Tanker Drivers, who refused to lift petroleum products from the coastal depots in protest against the huge amount they were being owed by the major marketers.

“We are, however, working towards a speedy resolution of the issues to ensure a hitch-free distribution of products across the country,” he said.

The Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria, however, accused the NNPC of giving the public wrong information on the availability of petrol, alleging that the claim by the corporation that it had enough product to sustain the country for over a month was a scam.

The Executive Secretary, MOMAN, Mr. Thomas Olawore, in an interview with one of our correspondents said, “If the NNPC is claiming that it has product that will sustain the country at the moment, we want to know where this product is and in whose tank farms it is kept.

“If the product is being shipped into the country, they should tell us the vessels that are being used. These are things we can easily confirm.”

Olawore added that if the product was offshore, it was easy for the marketers to investigate with clear specification of their destination if the NNPC could provide the names of the vessels being used.

The NNPC had said it would not be distracted by the threat of the major marketers to stop importing PMS if the subsidy arrears owed them by the Federal Government were not paid.

Alegbe said the corporation was not moved by the marketers’ threat and that it was committed to ensuring that there was a smooth handover of power from the incumbent government of President Goodluck Jonathan to the President-elect, Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) on May 29.

He said the corporation would not allow product supply issues to mar the handover as it would import adequate quantity of the PMS to ease movement and economic activities nationwide.

The Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association and MOMAN had put the aggregate subsidy arrears owed the marketers by the Federal Government at N356.2bn.

Of this amount, the government had made provision for Sovereign Debt Notes of N100bn, which are expected to mature at the end of this month.

The balance of N256.2bn comprises actual subsidy arrears for part of 2014 and so far this year, and the foreign exchange differentials and bank interests.