The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited has finally provided reason for the recent fuel scarcity being witnessed in various parts of the country including Lagos, Abuja, and some other major cities.
The NNPC has blamed ongoing road projects in Lagos for the scarcity of fuel and long queues at filling stations. This appears to be NNPC’s first official response to the crisis in the downstream oil sector. This was made known by NNPC’s executive vice president, downstream, Adeyemi Adetunju, while addressing a press conference on Tuesday, November 29, 2022, in Abuja. Adetunju did point out that the congestion is reducing as a result of the NNPC scheduling trucks and vessels to unconstrained depots while closely monitoring large-scale load outs from depots to other states.
‘’The recent queues in Lagos are largely due to ongoing road infrastructure projects around Apapa and access road challenges in some parts of Lagos depots. The gridlock is easing out and NNPC has programmed vessels and trucks to unconstrained depots and massive load outs from depots to various states are closely being monitored.
“Abuja is impacted by the challenges recorded in Lagos. NNPC retail and key marketers have intensified dedicated loading into Abuja to restore normalcy as soon as possible.” The NNPC top official assured Nigerians that efforts are ongoing to ensure that normalcy returns as soon as possible. He added that the
NNPC has a “national petrol stock of over 2 billion Litres. This is equivalent to over 30 days of sufficiency.
“We want to reassure all Nigerians that NNPC has sufficient products, and we significantly increased product loading, including 24-hour operations in selected depots and extended hours at strategic stations to ensure products sufficiency nationwide.’’
“We are also working with the NMDPRA, MOMAN, DAPPMAN, IPMAN, NARTO, PTD, and other industry stakeholders to ensure normalcy is returned.”
Fuel scarcity has become a persistent issue in Nigeria, leaving many commuters and drivers stranded as a result of the lengthy queues at petrol stations in various parts of the country.
the NNPC and the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) just recently announced that they were collaborating to improve the distribution of petrol across the country.
According to MOMAN, association members would be working overtime and, on the weekend, to fill in product supply shortfalls and ship out more products than usual. The fuel scarcity has resulted to increase in the prices of PMS in many petrol stations across the country. The statement by the NNPC official hints at majorly efforts to curtail the increasing fuel scarcity. This is likely to affect the prevailing prices of PMS but not AGO/MGO.
Source: Nairametrics, Channels TV, TV360
