Fuel scarcity: Our depots are empty – DAPPMA

As fuel scarcity bites hard in Lagos metropolis, depot owners, who are members of Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association (DAPPMA) said, onyMonday, that their depots were, currently, empty as a result of lack of supply from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
Currently, NNPC is the sole importer of petroleum products particularly, Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) or petrol, into the country, as depot owners and major oil marketers complained of lack of liquidity and access to forex.
According to DAPPMA executive secretary, Olufemi Adewole, “we have not been getting fuel supply from NNPC, since the past one week”, adding that the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and other regulatory agencies could carry inspection visit on their depots to confirm what he had said.
“As I am speaking with you, we don’t have any stock. We had expected that based on our meeting with NNPC three weeks ago, our depots should be adequately stocked. Right now, I can’t say exactly what is going on, because we have played our part  and NNPC should play its,” he said
For the Independent Petroleum Markers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Western zone, a top official, Debo Ahmed, said the situation may be worse than imagined in the next few days, if there was no intervention from the NNPC.
“Right now, Ibadan depot is not loading. Lagos NNPC’s Satellite depot started loading yesterday night. Ore and Ilorin depots have long shut down,” he said
Meanwhile, the persistent fuel scarcity is taking its toll on Lagos residents as illegal fuel hawkers resurfaced, besieging major roads, especially around filling stations.
It was observed, on Monday, that since the scarcity started at the weekend, a lot of hawkers had flooded virtually all the streets, selling products to desperate buyers.
Further checks revealed that petrol filling stations within the city and a few owned by some major marketers in the outskirts of the Lagos metropolis  still sell at the official price of N145 per litre, while other stations now sell at between N170 and N200 per litre.
And, for the persisting scarcity, many commuters are left stranded at the various bus stops due to lack of commercials vehicles, while the few ones still plying have increased their fares by more than 50 per cent.
However, the NNPC has said that about 250 trucks of petrol was released to Lagos metropolis on Sunday to address the lingering scarcity.