Petrol shortages facing Abuja and neighbouring states intensified yesterday as more stations ran out of the product leaving commuters and motorists struggling to go about their daily business.
Chaos reigned at few filling stations dispensing the product with black marketers hiking petrol price to N1,500 per litre from N1,000 per litre sold the previous day.
Checks around the city showed that few stations operated by major marketers were dispensing to motorists in the central area and suburbs, while stations operated by independent marketers were shut.
Meanwhile, NNPC Limited, yesterday, assured consumers that challenges that led to petrol shortages across the country have been resolved.
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Giving an update on the situation, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) explained that the tightness in the supply of Premium Motor Spirit currently being experienced in some areas across the country “is as a result of logistics issues and that they have been resolved”.
NNPC’s Chief Corporate Communications Officer, Mr. Olufemi Soneye in a statement said said the company “also wishes to reiterate that the prices of petroleum products are not changing.
“It urges Nigerians to avoid panic buying as there is a sufficiency of products in the country”.
The Public Relations Officer of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, Chief Chinedu Ukadike had blamed the queues on logistics challenges.
He told Vanguard that independent marketers have not been able to order for new products in the past two weeks because the NNPC Retail portal is down.
“The portal is down and we have not been able to request for products. We have a meeting with NNPC Retail tomorrow where we hope that the issue will be resolved. The challenge is logistic and we hope to have it resolved soonest.
“I don’t think there’s any need for panic buying because the issue will be resolved soon. I will only appeal to NNPC to create an alternative like physical process of making an order for products at a time like this.
“IPMAN stations are shut down because we don’t have the product and that is why you are seeing the queues. Once we receive the product, queues will disappear because we will relieve the stations operated by major marketers. Don’t forget that we have more stations and we are also closer to the consumers”, he added.
(VANGUARD)
