DAILY POST
Petroleum marketers have blamed the current scarcity of petroleum products on the alleged shady deals between the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, Depots and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria, DAPPMA, and the regulatory agency, Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, NMDPRA.
The marketers claimed that the deals involving the NNPC, the tank farm owners and the NMDPRA, were inimical to the availability of the products and seamless distribution to retail outlets.
Against this background, the downstream operators have called on President Bola Tinubu to urgently intervene in the issue.
The marketers who spoke on condition of anonymity revealed that NNPCL being the sole importer of the products now put the Independent Marketers whom they noted have the largest retail outlets in the country at the mercy of the DAPPMA (the tank farm owners).
DAILY POST reports that NNPCL, the sole importer, gives petrol to the private depot owners operating under the aegis of DAPPMA at a depot price of N556.5 per litre.
Investigations, however, revealed that the tank farm owners sell to marketers at N700 to N740.00, leaving them with little or no marginal profit to sell at stations.
One of the marketers who pleaded anonymity said: “What we used to have in the past was an arrangement where the NNPCL gave allocations meant for Independent marketers to the private depot owners to sell to marketers with a benchmark, a reasonable price.
