Major commercial hubs in Nigeria including Lagos, Abuja, and the Ogun States have started witnessing a scarcity supply of petrol as long queues returns at filling stations.
BusinessandEducation gathered that most filling stations have adjusted their pump price as petrol now sells between N180 and N200 per litre.
Meanwhile, the independent oil marketers have blamed the scarcity on the drop in supply as demand for petrol was currently higher than what was being provided by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), the sole importer of petrol into Nigeria.
Recall that the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) said that the scarcity was due to its members’ inability to restock based on the current cost of loading from private depots.
Akin Akinrinade, chairman of IPMAN, Lagos Satellite Depot, called for N180 per litre pump price in line with the current economic realities as N165 per litre, has become unrealistic.
According to him, members are registered to load with Pipelines Products Marketing Company (PPMC), but since December last year, not a litre has been lifted at the NNPC’s satellite depots in Ejigbo.
“We have tickets that have been paid for amounting to over N1 billion as far back as October 2021, and these tickets have not been loaded, meaning that PPMC is holding on to marketers’ money. These are funds we are supposed to use to run our businesses. We are businessmen, we take bank loans and now we are paying for money that we are not using,” he lamented.
