Marketers Blame Supply Hitches As Fuel Scarcity Looms

Following the shortage of Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol in Abuja, Nasarawa, Niger and some other states in the country, marketers have blamed the shortage on supply hitches.

Fuel queues began to resurface again on Friday, leaving many motorists wondering what could be wrong. This development had led to the dramatic hike in price of PMS in some parts of the country.

Several filling stations in Lagos hiked the price of PMS to over N700 per litre.

A resident, Tomisin Bakare, who said he bought PMS from a filling station around the Lagos State University-Igando axis stated that he was shocked when the attendant said fuel was now N700 per litre.

“This is after I had already spent over 50 minutes on the queue,” he quipped.

A bus driver, who gave his name only as Oga Iba, said he had to wake up early to get the product but was shocked to meet a queue there.

“They sold it for N690 to me along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. I went back this afternoon to refill and they said it was N710. Some of the stations, I learnt, even sold for N715 and N720 per litre,” he said.

In Imo and Anambra states it was confirmed that filling stations with products hiked their prices to as high as N800 per litre while in Kaduna, it is N1300.

The development forced many commuters to resort to trekking to their various destinations, with commercial transport operators capitalising on the hardship to increase transport fares.

In Abuja, motorists in the Federal Capital Territory grappled with long queues at fuel stations.

Dealers told our correspondent that the discharge from the vessel would be completed on Friday, while tankers might begin to load on Saturday or Sunday before transporting the product to Abuja and other states.

NNPC had earlier blamed the fuel scarcity on issues around logistics but stated that it had resolved the problem.

The Chief Corporate Communications Officer, NNPC, Olufemi Soneye, also urged motorists not to be involved in panic buying, because the national oil company and sole importer of petrol had enough products.