There is petrol – NNPCL insists as marketers complain of shortages

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) today, Wednesday, August 7, insisted that it is not short of the Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) petrol.

NNPCL’s Chief Corporate Communications Officer, Olufemi Soneye, who confirmed this to our correspondent on the phone, also said he was yet to know if there were supply issues in the petrol market, reports The Nation.

He vowed to get in touch with the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) to find out the state of PMS distribution in the country.

Soneye said: “We have supplies. Like I was saying, we don’t have supply issues. If there are distribution issues, I will try and get in touch with NMDPRA to find out what is going on. But we have supplies.”

This is coming on the heels of a complaint of supply glitch from the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN) that virtually all the filling stations have no petrol.

Speaking with our correspondent n on the phone, PETROAN’s National President, Dr. Billy Harry, said the marketers are not loading the product due to supply challenges.

“There is no fuel. Almost every filling station is empty. I am in Port Harcourt now, there is no product.

“We have not been able to load. We are still having the same supply glitch. It is the same supply challenge,” he said.

On depot price, Harry noted the NNPCL has left its depot price unchanged while the product is not available in private depots.

The National President said, “NNPCL has not changed price. Private depots don’t have fuel. If they had we would have been buying. We are all waiting for NNPCL.”

Retail outlets across the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) were under lock and key today for lack of the product.

This resulted in very long queues in the few petrol stations mostly NNPCL that ended the product.

Black marketers were on different expressways selling petrol for as much as N10,000 per 10 litre in plastic containers.