• HURIWA urges Tinubu to save Nigerians from misery
• Accuses NNPCL of incompetence, profiteering
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), yesterday, said the queues currently seen in parts of the country are as a result of disruption of Ship-To-Ship (STS) transfer of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), also known as petrol, between mother vessels and daughter vessels, resulting from recent thunderstorm.
The Guardian had earlier reported that different parts of the country had a growing number of private and commercial drivers lined up for hours with uncertainty over supply. Black marketers were already trading a litre for N1,500 amid the hike already being experienced in the cost of transportation.
The Chief Corporate Communications Officer of NNPCL, Olufemi Soneye, said the adverse weather condition also affected berthing at jetties, truck load-outs and transportation of products to filling stations, causing a disruption in station supply logistics.
He added that due to flammability of petroleum products and in compliance with the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) regulations, it was impossible to load petrol during rainstorms and lightning.
Soneye mentioned that NNPCL was working with relevant stakeholders to resolve the logistics challenges and restore a seamless supply of petrol to affected areas.
Revealing that loading has commenced in areas where the challenges subsided, he added: “We are hoping the situation will continue to improve in the coming days and normalcy will restored.
“The NNPCL also calls on motorists to avoid panic buying and hoarding of petroleum products.”
ON its part, the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) accused private depot owners for the emerging queues in Lagos and other states.
IPMAN National President, Abubakar Maigandi, said: “The private depots have petroleum products but selling at N715 per litre ex-depot price. The queues you are seeing are the artificial creation of depot owners, but we cannot allow them to keep doing things like this.
“In Lagos, NNPCL sells petrol at N568 per litre, so our members cannot buy at N715 and discharge in Lagos. That is why there are queues in Lagos. But in other places where our members can still add their margin, even when they buy at N715 per litre from the private depots, there are no queues.”
Similarly, the Executive Secretary of Major Energy Marketers Association of Nigeria (MEMAN), Clement Isong, said the supply chain was disrupted for a few days last week following the heavy rain.
“Petrol cannot be loaded during rainstorms and lightning,” he explained.
MEANWHILE, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has condemned what it called crass incompetence of the NNPCL, which punishing Nigerians in the form of artificial scarcity of petrol.
The civil rights advocacy group alleged conspiracy between NNPCL and petrol markets to create artificial scarcity to enable smuggle the products meant for the local market to neighbouring countries and sell at a higher price particularly since the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has continued to devalue the naira against foreign denominations.
But NNPCL and independent marketers are shifting the blame to private depot owners and logistics to move the products as causes of the scarcity.
HURIWA, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, condemned the Federal Government for letting the NNPCL routinely subject Nigerians to long ordeals of artificial fuel scarcity in their attempts at profiteering alongside their cohorts masquerading as petrol marketers.
The rights group lamented the docility of Nigerians to stage protests against mistreatment by the central and sub-national governments.
It said even when the government bragged that the now incorporated petroleum company, which emerged from the corruption-ridden NNPC, had become professionally competent and efficient, fuel queues returned to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, as residents rush to get the seemingly scarce product even at a higher price.
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