Petrol scarcity to last another two weeks, says IPMAN 

• Residents groan as queues return in Osun, Oyo

As the petrol supply challenge enters the second week, marketers have explained that the issues that led to the product scarcity would take another 14 days to be fully resolved.  

Public Relations Officer, Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Chinedu Ukadike, clarified that the product was not available in-country. He blamed the shortage on importation bottlenecks and slow pace of marketers’ licence renewal by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA). 

Ukadike said only 1,050 out of total 15,000 marketers have had their licences renewed by the regulator.  He noted: “The situation is that there is no product. Once there is a lack of supply or inadequate supply, what you will see is scarcity and queues will emerge at filling stations. On the part of NNPCL, which is the sole supplier of petroleum products in Nigeria, they have attributed the challenge to logistics and vessel problems.

“Once there is a breach in the international supply chain, it will have an impact on domestic supply because we depend on import. I also have it on good authority that most of the refineries in Europe are undergoing turnaround maintenance. So, sourcing of petroleum products has become a bit difficult. 

“The NNPCL Group CEO has assured us that there will be improvement in the supply chain because their vessels are arriving. Once that is done, normalcy will return. This is because once the 30-day supply sufficiency is disrupted, it takes two to three months to restore it. We expect that by next week or so, NNPCL should be able to restore supply and with another week, normalcy should return.”

On the challenges faced by marketers in renewing their licences, the spokesman stated: “NNPCL has said marketers, who have not been able to renew their licences will not be allowed to remain on their portal, which has been shut for some time now. Because of this, we have not been able to request for new products.

“At this nascent period of deregulation, you will discover that this leads to scarcity even when the product arrives. As it is now, even by their own data, out of 15,000 marketers that are on the portal, only 1,050 have renewed their licences. And the requirement for renewal by NMDPRA is so much. Marketers are facing a hostile environment. NNPCL placed a deadline of April 15, 2024, for marketers to renew their licences. 

“We are therefore appealing to NNPCL to extend the deadline and also to NMDPRA to hasten the release of marketers’ licences, who have completed their processes, and also reduce the bottlenecks around licence renewal.”

BESIDES, Osun residents have expressed displeasure over difficulty in petrol in parts of the state following alleged hoarding by owners of petrol stations.

The affected persons, including commercial and private vehicle owners, motorcyclists, and artisans, accused marketers of hoarding the productl, a situation that has created artificial scarcity and inflation.

They claimed that some marketers intentionally shut their facilities with a claim that they do not have supply, adding that the same stations open for business whenever their colleagues dispense at exorbitant prices.

Checks by The Guardian yesterday in Osogbo revealed that the number of vehicles plying the roads reduced drastically. Few stations that attended to the public sold between N7,000 and N1,000 per litre amid mammoth crowds.

Expectedly, the scarcity has prompted an increase in fare within Osogbo. Commercial motorcyclists, who used to charge between N150 and N250 for a drop, now take between N200 and N500 depending on distance.

A commercial driver, Idris Adeyanju, blamed marketers for the scarcity. Meanwhile, the Osun State Government Taskforce on Petroleum Price Monitoring, yesterday, warned owners of petrol stations against product hoarding.

In a statement, chairman of the task force and Chief of Staff to the State Governor, Kazeem Akinleye, said after due surveillance of major towns and the capital in the last three days, his team observed that most filling stations were hoarding the product to create unnecessary, thereby worsening the fuel supply situation in the state. He, therefore, warned the affected filling stations already listed as direct culprits to open up their tanks and dispense fuel to the public.

The task force charged the marketers to be public-spirited in their pricing of petroleum products, reminding them of the already harsh economic situation in the country.

“Failure to stop the fuel hoarding and take humanitarian notice of the prevailing economic situation in the country will lead to severe sanctions,” the statement warned.

This is even as many fuel stations in Ibadan were yesterday under lock and key. Only NNPC sold the product at the official N580 per litre.The few available stations selling the product had very long queues.