As acute petrol supply challenges enter its second week, independent marketers have explained that issues that led to the scarcity of the product would take another two weeks to be fully resolved.
Checks around Abuja on Sunday showed that most stations were out of stock with very few major marketers dispensing the product in Abuja city centre. In the suburbs, the few stations opened to motorists jacked up their pump price from N680 per liter to N870.
Speaking to Newsmen on the situation, the Public Relations Officer, of Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, Chief Chinedu Ukadike said the product was not available in-country.
Chief Ukadike blamed the acute shortage in supply of importation bottlenecks and the slow pace of marketers’ license renewal by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, NMDPRA.
He disclosed that only 1,050 marketers out of 15,000 have had their licenses renewed by the NMDPRA.
He said: “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.
