The Chairman of the South West chapter of the Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Gas workers, Tokunbo Korodo, has stated that the ongoing fuel scarcity in the country may last another three to four weeks due to the logistics involved in getting fuel laden ships to Nigerian waters.
The scarcity was caused by a delay in the release of first quarter allocation by the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA)
Korodo said, “There was a delay in the approval of import allocation to the marketers. The import allocation was given last week and you know everything has a due process. The marketers will have to contact their banks, order for the product, and ship the product to Nigeria. As such, it will take three to four weeks for the product to get to the Nigerian soil.
“Had it been that the government was proactive enough to give approval to them in time, we will not be in this situation; and now, we should be thinking about the approval for the second quarter because this is March already.”
He said the scarcity could be lifted if the NNPC released the product it had in its strategic reserves.
“If the NNPC can release whatever they have in their own stock to all the marketers that have facilities to distribute and dispense, the scarcity will be quenched. We all know that the NNPC’s ability to distribute petroleum products is being hampered as a result of vandalism of pipelines.
“Therefore, it is distributing through some private facilities, but it has preference in releasing products to the marketers. But if the NNPC can release the products it has in its stock to all the marketers, this ugly situation will be quickly arrested. But if it continues to give preference to some marketers, the situation will continue to escalate.”