Motorists and commuters are groaning across Nigeria due to the scarcity of premium motor spirit (PMS), commonly referred to as petrol, giving rise to the proliferation of black marketers who sell the product at prices as high as N1,200 per litre in several states.
Across the country, many filling stations did not open, while there were long queues at those dispensing the product. Commuters are stranded as most of the commercial vehicles plying the roads have hiked their fares.
Oil marketers have blamed the fresh scarcity on supply challenges from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, the major oil supplier.
According to the National President of the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN), Billy Gillis-Harry while featuring as a guest on a Channels Television breakfast programme, The Morning Brief, the supply challenge has not been resolved. He, however, acknowledged the efforts by NNPC to solve the problem.
Gillis-Harry said, “NNPC has its outlets that they also serve. So, if they have some logistics issues, that will possibly be what is internal to NNPC. But as for us, PETROAN members, we can tell Nigerians for real that if we have petroleum products delivered to us, supply to us upon payment for those same products, we will supply to Nigerians.
“I would like to correct Nigerians that we retail outlet owners or marketers as they generally call all of us is the reason for this. We do not have any reason not to serve the public and we are willing to serve the public. All that is required is for us to have petroleum products delivered to us from NNPC and we will make sure that our retail outlets are open, some of them are even open for 24 hours.
“The challenge of logistics is only relevant to the NNPC retail outlets.”
Meanwhile, the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has stated that the ongoing petrol shortage, which is affecting an increasing number of states in the country, is expected to take around 2 weeks to resolve.
The Public Relations Officer of IPMAN, Chinedu Ukadike, revealed that the product is currently unavailable in the country due to challenges in sourcing caused by ongoing maintenance at refineries in Europe.
He said, “The situation is that there is no product. Once there is a lack of supply or inadequate supply, what you will see is scarcity and queues will emerge at filling stations.
“On the part of NNPCL, which is the sole supplier of petroleum products in Nigeria, they have attributed the challenge to logistics and vessel problems.
“Once there is a breach in the international supply chain, it will have an impact on domestic supply because we depend on imports. I also have it on good authority that most of the refineries in Europe are undergoing turnaround maintenance, so sourcing petroleum products has become a bit difficult.
“NNPC Group CEO has assured us that there will be improvement in the supply chain because their vessels are arriving. Once that is done, normalcy will return. This is because once the 30-day supply sufficiency is disrupted, it takes two to three months to restore it.
“We expect that by next week or so, NNPC should be able to restore supply and with another week, normalcy should return.
“NNPC has said the marketers who have not been able to renew their licences will not be allowed to remain on their portal which has been shut for some time now. Because of this, we have not been able to request new products.
“At this nascent period of deregulation, you will discover that this leads to scarcity, even when the product arrives. As it is now, even by their data, out of 15,000 marketers that are on the portal with licences, only 1,050 renewed their licences.
“The requirement for renewal by NMDPRA is so much. Marketers are facing a hostile environment. NNPC placed a deadline of April 15, 2024, for marketers to renew their licences.
“We are, therefore, appealing to NNPC to extend this deadline and also to NMDPRA to hasten the release of licences of marketers who have completed their processes, and also reduce bottlenecks around licence renewals.’’
