Another fuel scarcity looms, stakeholders warn
In three to four weeks time, Nigeria is likely to experience another round of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) shortage given the current supply hitches in the petroleum downstream sub-sector.
Two marketers operating in Apapa, Lagos State confirmed this to our correspondent in separate telephone interviews on Friday.
One of the marketers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation had resorted to rationing products to marketers.
He said orders from marketers for petrol from the national oil company had continued to pile. Marketers, especially independent petroleum marketers, who hitherto got seamless supply from the NNPC, had been in the waiting for weeks, our correspondent gathered.
In a related development, the Chief executive Officer of Seplat Petroleum Development Company Plc., Mr. Austin Avuru, had on Thursday, said Nigeria would probably be hit by fuel scarcity in three weeks as the government does not have enough money to pay for petrol subsidies.
'In three weeks we will be back to scarcity because we simply don't have the money to pay for the subsidy,' Avuru said at a Bloomberg conference held at the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
Another marketer, whose company has been without product for three weeks, told our correspondent that, 'in three to four weeks time, the NNPC will be able to manage this challenge again.'
The source told our correspondent that out of the over 30 depots in Apapa, only five were functioning as at Thursday, adding that the NNPC had continued to fail most marketers after many promises to make petrol available to them.
This, the marketer explained, was the reason some filling stations had remained shut for some period.
Nigeria almost ground to a halt last month during the country's worst fuel shortage in a decade due to a dispute between oil-product marketers and the outgoing government. The shortage left service stations closed, aircraft grounded, and businesses unable to operate.
A past chairman, Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Western Zone, Mr. Olumide Ogunmade, told our correspondent in a telephone interview that it was important the country considered the deregulation option for the petroleum downstream subsector.
He said the era of subsidy was no longer fashionable considering the huge cost linked to the petroleum subsidy scheme.
When SUNDAY PUNCH contacted the Executive Secretary, Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria, Thomas Olawore, he declined to comment on the development. Punch