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-Stations sell at N187/litre

By Obas Esiedesa, Abuja

Acute petrol shortages facing the country entered the third week yesterday despite assurances by the Federal Government that the situation would improve this week.

In Abuja, long queues continued at a few stations owned by major marketers while stations operated by independent marketers were still without the product. Outside the city centre, where independent marketers opened, pump prices ranged from N175 to N187 per litre at filling stations visited by Vanguard.

A government spokesman had last week in a telephone chat with Vanguard assured that the supply would improve this week.

According to him, “While it is difficult to give a definite date (when the situation will normalize) but within the next few days because more vessels with clean fuel are coming through but the distribution logistics take some time, so very soon it will return to normal.

“The more PMS that comes in, the shorter the time frame but the distribution logistics also have its time frame. You can see that more filling stations are dispensing only that there are queues but the more filling stations that are receiving new supplies the less the concentration of the queues.

“I am expecting that within the next week we will be seeing the receding of these queues”, he added.

Speaking to Vanguard on why independent stations were selling above government-regulated prices, the Public Relations Officer of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Chief Cinedu Ukadike explained that private depot owners have increased the depot price.

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“Marketers are running a business, not charity. The pump price is determined by how you buy it from the depot. Government-owned depots are not selling to independent marketers because they do not have the product.

“As I speak to you all the orders we placed no one has received any supply. So those who now decide to go to private depots to buy at a higher price have to sell at a price that allows them to recover their cost and make a small profit”, Ukadike added.

The government had two days ago admitted its role in the importation of adulterated petrol into the country, blaming it on inspection failure.

The Minister of State Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva said: “In the last weeks, Nigerians have grappled with fuel scarcity, not because of the absence of supply of products but due to inspection failure, which allowed adulterated products into the country.

“This is regrettable, and the Federal Government sympathizes with the citizenry over the unforeseen hardship, occasioned by the inevitable scarcity. Let me once again appeal to Nigerians to be patient with the government in finding lasting solutions to the crisis”.

Vanguard News Nigeria