PUNCH
Many depots for Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol, are currently dry, leading to fuel scarcity and attendant queues in Lagos, Ogun, parts of Abuja, Niger, and some other states across the country.
The PUNCH reports that black marketers have taken advantage of the situation, selling as high as N1,300 per litre and N1,500 per litre in parts of Lagos and Ogun states.
Long queues started building up at fuel stations in Abuja and Lagos on Friday and have persisted.
On Saturday, while reacting to the long queues and scarcity in some parts of the country, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited said the tightness in fuel supply and distribution was caused by a hitch in the discharge operations of a couple of vessels.
“The NNPC Ltd wishes to state that the tightness in fuel supply and distribution witnessed in some parts of Lagos and the FCT is as a result of a hitch in the discharge operations of a couple of vessels,” the NNPC Chief Corporate Communications Officer, Olufemi Soneye, said.
The company added that it was “working round the clock with all stakeholders to resolve the situation and restore normalcy in the operations.”
However, despite the assurance by the NNPC, the situation worsened as checks by our correspondents nationwide on Sunday showed that there were long queues at several filling stations across major cities.
No loading at Apapa
The PUNCH gathered that there was no loading of trucks in the Apapa depots as of Sunday.
A depot operator, who did not want his name in print, told our correspondent that there was no fuel in almost all the depots on Sunday after the little available was supplied on Saturday.
The source confirmed that the depots are dry, saying “supply gets late thereby affecting product load out.”
