After many days of queuing by petroleum users, the scarcity subsided yesterday in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, with more filling stations selling petrol at the officials N145 per litre.
At many filing stations visited by our correspodent petrol attendants were seen signalling to people to come buy the products as there was no queue.
Black market sales have also gone down. But at Sabo area, black marketers are still making sales, though at the initial N1250 they sell 4 litres when there was scarcity.
This is just as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has promised to flood depots with petrol but the Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association (DAPPMA) said the corporation was yet to send petrol to its members’ depots.
DAPPMA’s Executive Secretary Olufemi Adewole, in a statement in Lagos, urged the NNPC to help the association so as to alleviate the suffering of Nigerians.
“Our members’ depots are empty. However, if the PPMC/NNPC can provide us with petrol, we are ready to do 24-hour loading to alleviate the suffering of Nigerians and for the fuel queues to be totally eliminated.
“We, petroleum products marketers, do empathise with all Nigerians who are going through difficulties at this time by spending hours on fuel queues because of the current fuel scarcity due to no fault of theirs.
”DAPPMA members import about 65 per cent of the nation’s total fuel consumption, Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) imports about 15 per cent and PPMC/NNPC import the balance of 20 per cent.
“However, this scenario changed drastically due to several challenges faced by marketers.’’
The DAPPMA official claimed that its members paid PPMC/NNPC in advance for petroleum products.
He said fully paid-up petrol orders, which have neither been programmed nor loaded, exceeded 500,000MT (about 800,000,000 litres).
“As at today, there is enough petrol to meet the nation’s needs for 19 days at a daily estimated consumption of 35,000,000 litres. Sadly, some people have blamed marketers for hoarding products. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth.
”Hoarding is regarded as economic sabotage and we assure all Nigerians that our members are not involved in such illicit act.
“While all kinds of allegations have been made in the media, it is important to set the records straight, as Nigerians first and as responsible business men and women who employ Nigerians.
”As it stands today, NNPC has been the sole importer of PMS into the country since October,’’ Adewole said.
He said the current import price of petrol is about N170 per litre, with NNPC, which absorbs the subsidy on behalf of the Federal Government, as the importer of last resort.
”The international price of petrol went up during the period of Hurricane Katrina and it has not dropped below USD$600/MT since then.”
Adewole said the exchange rate of the dollar to the Naira is N306 for petrol imports and the interest rate banks charge is above 25 per cent.
”Landing cost of PMS in Nigeria is above N145 per litre, which means any of our members that import will have to resort to subsidy claims, a policy already jettisoned by the government.
”It is on record that any time NNPC assumes the role of sole importer; there are issues of distribution, because it is marketers who own 80 per cent of the functional receptive facilities and retail outlets in Nigeria.
”While we cannot confirm or dispute NNPC’s claim of having sufficient product stock, we can confirm that the products are not in our tanks and, as such, cannot be distributed.
”If the products are offshore, then surely it cannot be considered to be available to Nigerians,’’ he said.
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