Akinpelu Dada, ’Femi Asu and Okechukwu Nnodim
Contrary to the pledge by the Minister of State for Petroleum
Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, that lingering fuel scarcity in the country
would end on or before Thursday, April 7, marketers and depot owners
said on Sunday that consumers might have to endure inadequate supply of
the product till May.
The minister had initially given May as the
most likely date for the fuel scarcity to abate but was forced to
recant and say the situation should normalise latest by Thursday
following criticisms from different segments of the country.
A
source among the marketers told one of our correspondents in Lagos on
Sunday that the situation on the ground did not give any hope that
petrol would be readily available at filling stations this month.
The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said only one of the
three parking spaces at the Apapa Port was discharging Premium Motor
Spirit, adding that instead of the two vessels that the Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation had promised would discharge by last
weekend, only one actually came in.
According to the source, the
vessel, which carried 21 million metric tonnes of petrol, berthed at the
Apapa Port on Thursday and only commenced discharging its content on
Saturday.
Another source, who is an official of an independent
marketer, said though his firm got the second quarter import permit just
before Easter, it usually takes about three weeks to arrange all the
logistics for importation, including the opening of Letters of Credit,
sourcing for foreign exchange and arranging with foreign suppliers and
shippers.
He explained, “The system is dislocated and even if the
marketers decide to import now, it will take a minimum of 21 days for
the fuel to come to Nigeria. The arrangement before now was for the
marketers to import 60 per cent of the country’s petrol need, and the
NNPC to bring in the balance.
“But the arrangement was changed
midway for the NNPC to import 78 per cent, while the marketers were left
with 22 per cent. However, the corporation lacks the capacity and
facilities to do this well. It is doing less than 60 per of its
allocation; so, I don’t know what magic it will perform to end the fuel
scarcity by Thursday.”
Another marketer, who spoke on condition
of anonymity, explained that before now, his firm was getting on the
average four cargos of PMS per quarter, but that the number had been
reduced to one cargo of 30 million metric tonnes, which translated into
about 120 trucks to service over 3,000 retail outlets.
The marketers said their ability to import petroleum products would be determined by foreign exchange availability.
The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency had last week released
the second quarter petrol import allocations, with the Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation given 41.7 per cent and private marketers
58.3 per cent of the national consumption.
In Lagos, many
filling stations did not open for business on Sunday, while those sold
the product had long queues of desperate motorists to contend with. On
the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, queues at Mobil and Oando filling stations
spilled onto the road and caused gridlock. Capital Oil and the other
Oando stations did not dispense petrol as of the time of our
correspondents checked.
The Executive Secretary, Depots and
Petroleum Products Marketers Association, Mr. Olufemi Adewole, said the
NNPC had assured the marketers that foreign exchange would be provided
for them through the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Adewole said, “As
soon as that is released, our people will start importing. If our
letters of credit are not backed by adequate foreign exchange, our
international supplier will not oblige us. We are still owing them
foreign exchange for deliveries made to us between September 2014 and
December last year.
“Government has given us the naira, but we
don’t have forex to pay them. Right now, what they have decided is that
if we want to buy anything from them, we should bring forex. And the
NNPC has assured us that they will give us. Once they give us forex, our
suppliers will release cargos to us.”
Commenting on the
increased allocation to the marketers for the second quarter, the
Chairman, Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, Lagos
Zone, Alhaji Tokunbo Korodo, described it as a welcome development.
“I think it will create the enabling environment for the marketers to
contribute their quota to the supply. But the most important thing is
that the government should make forex available to them as they promised
so that we can bring this scarcity to an end.”
He stressed the need for mass importation of the product to solve the supply challenge currently facing the country.
Meanwhile, international oil companies in Nigeria’s upstream oil and
gas sector are to provide foreign exchange for the importation of petrol
in a bid to help the country address its lingering fuel scarcity
problems.
This is coming as the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation announced on Sunday that the country’s three refineries
would commence the refining of crude oil to produce petrol for local
consumption this month.
The Group Executive Director/Chief
Operations Officer, NNPC Downstream, Mr. Henry Ikem-Obih, told
journalists after touring some petrol stations in Abuja on Sunday that
the corporation was working extremely hard to ensure that the queues
were eliminated.
Asked to explain how the corporation planned to
tackle the issue of foreign exchange scarcity for marketers in order to
enable them import products, Ikem-Obih stated that upstream oil
companies like Shell and Mobil, among others, and the NNPC would work
together in making forex available.
He said, “As you know, forex
availability was one of the prime reasons why we didn’t do well in the
first quarter. Most marketers who had allocations could not import
because they couldn’t access forex. The minister has worked very closely
through his own initiatives with the upstream oil companies. So, we
have a number of them on board with us and they will support the local
entities and downstream companies.
Punch.
Lady Ruchy
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