According to oil marketers on Friday, the Christmas and New Year celebrations may be impacted by the recurring presence of lines of anxious drivers at gas stations searching for Premium Motor Spirit, also known as gasoline.
Additionally, it was reported that oil marketers were now allowed to sell gasoline at any price as the Federal Government no longer prohibited them from doing so at a set price.
Since January of this year, fuel lines have continued to form and dissipate despite oil marketers raising the price of the product without receiving Federal Government clearance or facing sanctions.
The Federal Government, via its Nigeria Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, opted not to comment on the situation.
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Inquiries on the nationwide shortage of gasoline were not answered by agency representatives via phone calls or text messages sent to their cell phones.
Similar to this, Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, the only importer of PMS into the nation, has declined to comment on the situation.
However, according to the NMDPRA’s assessment on product sufficiency released on Thursday, the country had 33.17 days’ worth of PMS as of November 24, 2022. In addition, it said that 2.1 billion litres of gasoline were still available despite lengthy lines around the country.
Oil marketers, however, disagreed with the government and said that there had been issues with logistics and the importer’s single supplier, the national oil company, supplying goods.
They added that all these worries might cause the current fuel lines to continue past December. They also claimed that some new charges had been established in the downstream oil industry, which had led to an increase in the ex-depot price of gasoline.
“Recently, there have been a lot of charges that marketers pay. There are some charges that the NNPC adds to the pump price, but recently we were told to be prepared to bear freight charges and others,” a major marketer, who pleaded not to be named due to lack of authorisation, stated.
“Also, pipeline charges that used to be 50 kobo before, are now N1 per litre. Now, these charges force depot owners to increase their ex-depot rates as against the one proposed by the NNPC.
“These and more concerns have led to the crisis in the downstream sector and it may stretch till December or even beyond if nothing tangible is done to address the challenges.”
“Nobody cares about how much you sell now. That is why you cannot see the NNPC ex-depot prices to be the same in all the depots.
“There are some changes in rates now, which the NNPC cannot accommodate and they have to push it to marketers to absorb. This is why you see people sell at different rates.”
The lack of foreign currency is another obstacle to the delivery of petroleum products, according to Chief Ukadike Chinedu, National Public Relations Officer of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria.
He stated: “There was a time you interviewed me some months ago, and I told you that fuel would sell for N200 per litre. You were really not comfortable with that statement.
“After that publication, many stakeholders called you to react to it. Some of them also called me to say why did I say fuel would be sold at that price? But I was only discussing based on the indices of the industry at that time.
“As a PRO of IPMAN in Nigeria, I can read the policies of the government towards the distribution of products in the downstream oil sector. You look at the exchange rate of the dollar to the naira, some foreign interruptions and the price of diesel.
“All these are factors that definitely affect petroleum products’ prices since we are not producing refined products in Nigeria. We cannot sustain the importation of petrol.
“Otherwise, we will continue to see ghost queues every month and this may continue till the end of this year. The major solution now is to speed up the repairs of our refineries. However, we are meeting and looking for quick interventions.”
The IPMAN’s deputy national president, Zarma Mustapha, predicted that the lines would likely last until December but added that work was being done to fix the problems.
He stated: “The on and off queues are due to issues of logistics in terms of supply of the commodity to the retail outlets from either the mother vessel to the private depot owners, and from there to independent and major marketers’ stations.
“There are a series of logistics issues as regards the supply chain. But the government and stakeholders are engaging in order to get a solution to these issues. However, we believe that this will be addressed, though it may drag beyond December.”
Also speaking, the Secretary, Abuja-Suleja IPMAN, Mohammed Shuaibu, stated that the current challenges of poor distribution and supply shortage of petrol might lead to widespread queues for PMS during the festive period in December.
“Our worry as marketers is that the festive month is at hand and if nothing is done quickly to address the current concerns around supply, I am afraid that it will escalate during the festivities, because it has started,”
