The Independent Petroleum Marketers of Nigeria (IPMAN) has revealed that NNPC for the last three years NNPC hasn’t supplied petroleum products to them as they now buy petroleum from private depots at a price of about N850.
Fuel scarcity has re-emerged in major cities such as Lagos and Abuja, with vehicles lining up at the few filling stations selling petrol on Monday and Tuesday.
IPMAN, whose members include a large share of Nigeria’s filling stations, accused the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited of not supplying sufficient products to its members attributing the current fuel scarcity to the lack of supply from NNPC.
“There is no supply anywhere. The available supply is poorly distributed. We have been raising concerns about this for a long time. ” The Chairman of IPMAN, Ore Depot, Shina Amoo, told Channels TV on Tuesday, August 20 in Lagos.
“The products we are selling, we are getting them at a premium. Virtually, all the locations we are buying the products from, they sell to us at the prices they wish to sell from the neighbourhood of N750 to N850 all depends on the depots you’re buying from.
“We have been sorting from the private depots over the years. Instead of getting the product from NNPC at the rate of five sixty-seven. None of us could get products from NNPC for the past two to three years,” he said.
He added that even if NNPC agrees to sell to marketers, there is a five-month wait for delivery, rendering the transaction ineffective.
“If we could get any from NNPC when you pay your draft today, you may end up picking that product in the next three to five months so the profit would have been eroded away. So we all prefer to have been lining up in any private depot. The private depots sell at N830 to N850, that is the situation for now,” Amoo added.