Price Of Petrol Kicks Up To 200 On Black Market - Dr. Ibe Kachikwu
 |
| minister of petroleum resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu |
The official pump prices of petrol are
N86 and N86.50 per litre at the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation’s filling stations and those belonging to independent
marketers, respectively.
This is coming as the NNPC announced
that it had secured the commitment of the Major Oil Marketers
Association of Nigeria to end the latest fuel crisis, which began last
week.
But the marketers said they had yet to
receive supply of the 180 million litres of petrol that the NNPC claimed
to have delivered as part of measures to ease the scarcity.
In Lagos, the product was sold on the
black market for between N150 and N200 per litre, depending on the area.
For instance, a cab operator, Patrick Omoregie, said he bought a
five-litre keg of petrol at Oshodi for N750.
But petrol hawkers at Gbadaga, near the
Mobil filling station, and those at Palmgrove and Fadeyi on Ikorodu
Road, offered to sell 10 litres of the product for N2,000.
One of our correspondents also observed
that black market hawkers in Abuja, Nasarawa and Kaduna were selling
petrol on the major roads.
They sold the product in jerry cans to
willing motorists who could afford the cost. The prices ranged from
N1,200 to N1,500 for 10 litres of petrol.
Many filling stations belonging to
independent marketers in Lagos and Abuja were shut on Monday, as they
claimed not to have the product to dispense.
The marketers said their inability to source enough foreign exchange from the banks was hampering fuel importation by them.
Queues of desperate motorists grew
longer at the few filling stations that had petrol to dispense than what
was witnessed on Sunday. And for filling stations located along major
roads, the queues spilled to the highways, causing serious traffic
snarls.
For instance, the MRS, Mobil, Oando,
Total and Conoil filling stations from the Alapere end of the Third
Mainland Bridge to the Berger end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway were
dispensing the product, but the queues extended to the roads and
affected the movement of other motorists.
Motorists like Pastor Felix Bakare,
Omoregie and Makanjuola Yakubu, who spoke with one of our correspondents
in Lagos, said they spent between two and three hours at filling
stations before they could get the product.
The National Operation Controller,
Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Mr. Mike
Osatuyi, said in a telephone interview with one of our correspondents on
Monday that the supply of petrol to members of the body had not
improved.
“The status quo remains. There is no
fuel. Where are the cargos they brought and which depots are the product
discharged into? Let them pump it out. Let us wait and see the fuel
that they said they brought,” he said.
The Chairman, Nigeria Union of Petroleum
and Natural Gas Workers, Lagos Zone, Alhaji Tokunbo Korodo, said,
“Since Thursday, the Ibadan, Ejigbo and Mosimi depots have not been
loading. They are just rationing the product. Where is the product?
“With the way the situation is going, if it is not urgently controlled, it will trigger a major crisis.”
The Executive Secretary, Depot and
Petroleum Products Marketers Association, Mr. Olufemi Adewole, said,
“The Pipelines and Product Marketing Company is importing 78 per cent of
the total consumption and its managing director has come on air to say
they are working seriously to bridge the gap. All of us are waiting for
them.”
He added that the major marketers and
DAPPMA members were given only 22 per cent, adding, “DAPPMA was
importing 55 per cent before. Now, our share has been slashed to less
than 10 per cent.”
The NNPC, however, said in a statement
by its Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Mr. Ohi
Alegbe, that it had stepped up its collaboration with MOMAN and other
downstream industry players to end the fuel queues.
It stated that it had secured the
commitment of the leadership of MOMAN and gave an assurance that the
queues would disappear in the days ahead as supplies had been ramped up.
According to the NNPC, the ‘truck-out’
to filling stations in the Lagos area has been increased from the
regular 245 to 295 trucks per day (9.7 million litres), while the supply
from the Suleja depot to Abuja has is now 210 trucks per day (6.9
million litres) from the previous 160 trucks.
The corporation added that similar increases had been done in Port Harcourt, Calabar, Kano and Kaduna.
“Within the last 48 hours, we have
received six cargos of petrol (270 million litres), and beginning from
March 1, 2016 (today), we shall begin to receive one cargo of petrol
every day (45 million litres),” the statement added.
CREDIT: THE PUNCH NEWSPAPER
Comments