By Naomi Uzor
The Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN), said aside shortages and lack of patriotism, greed is the major reason for fuel adulteration and other petroleum products.

Speaking at the 2010 AGM/seminar of the petroleum downstream group of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), tagged “Shortages and Adulteration of Petroleum Products in the Petroleum Industry”the Executive Secretary of MOMAN, Mr. Obafemi Olawore, said the origin of adulteration is unknown but traceable and linked to shortages, lack of patriotism and greed.

According to him, most truck drivers are more intelligent than scientist as they always have a way of manipulating the content of the petroleum product being conveyed between  the depot to its destination.

“Most truck drivers are more intelligent than scientist, they load a 33,000 tank full of fuel at the depot, but when they get to a point, on their way to their destination, they remove a lot of litres from it and mix up the remaining content in the tank with water, debris and with another product of lower price, anything just to make up the 33,000 litres that was originally loaded from the depot all because of greed” he stated.

He said the only way out of adulteration of is deregulation, adding that what government pay as  subsidy is outrageous and for the deregulation to come to past, the union needs to sit with government to agree what the subsidy should be used for, set time frame and hold government responsible in case of non_performance.

“Generally speaking, we need to tackle the supply side by increasing local production especially solving the incessant damage of pipelines, fix the refineries and depots and privatize them, aligning the ex_depot price with the import parity, if it takes at least 2 years to build a new refinery then the process of building new ones should start now.”

The Chairman, petroleum downstream group of the LCCI, Mr Murphy Balogun, said the petroleum industry in Nigeria has been undergoing lots of happenings which has led to the credit freeze to the sector, series of industrial actions, poor state of refineries, inconclusive reforms and transportation challenges faced by petroleum products transporters.

“Many operators in the petroleum downstream sector are facing harsh credit conditions from their bankers due to the lingering economic and financial crisis in Nigeria. The banks have become too careful to lend to operators in the oil & gas sector due to the unfortunate incident of oil price crash at the very inception of the global economic recession” he said.