Oil marketers give reason for sudden fuel scarcity across Nigeria  

Petrol products marketers have attributed the recent shortage of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), also petrol, to a problem with supply from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited.

Billy Gillis-Harry, the National President of the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN), announced this on Monday during The Morning Brief breakfast show on Channels Television.

A litre of petrol has jumped from 650 naira to nearly 1,200 in many parts of the country as fresh fuel scarcity takes a heavy toll on economic activities in states across the 36 states of the Federation.

Last Thursday, NNPC spokesman, Olufemi Soneye, noted that the “tightness in the supply of Premium Motor Spirit currently being experienced in some areas across the country is as a result of logistics issues and that they have been resolved”.

The NNPC then urged Nigerians to avoid panic buying as there was sufficient product in the country.

Despite the assurance, PETROAN boss, Billy Gillis-Harry, declared that the supply chaos has not been resolved.

He, however, acknowledged efforts by the NNPC to bring the raging tightness to a complete halt.

Gillis-Harry said, “NNPC has its own outlets that they also serve. So if they have some logistics issues, that will possibly be what is internal to NNPC. But as for us, PETROAN members, we can tell Nigerians for real that if we have petroleum products delivered to us, supply to us upon payment for those same products, we will supply to Nigerians.

“I would like to correct Nigerians that we retail outlet owners or marketers as they generally call all of us is the reason for this. We do not have any reason not to serve the public and we are willing to serve the public. All that is required is for us to have petroleum products delivered to us from NNPC and we will make sure that our retail outlets are open, some of them are even open for 24 hours.

“The challenge of logistics is only relevant to the NNPC retail outlets.”