Fuel queues hit Lagos, others as thieves vandalise pipelines.

•Marketers halt petrol loading, blame vandals for disruption

•More filling stations shut as import hiccups hurt supply

Long queues for Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol, are beginning to resurface at filling stations in Lagos, Ogun and a few other South-Western states.

Although The Legal Attorney Blog gathered that queues were not seen in Abuja and other states in the North, it was learnt that depots in Lagos were gradually running dry of petrol.

Queues were sighted at many stations, particularly those on the Oshodi-Ojodu Berger Expressway and some sections of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, as vehicles that waited to purchase petrol stretched into the expressway, slowing down movement on the service lane.

 

North-West filling station had the longest queue, dispensing petrol at N568/litre. Others, such as Eterna – N568/litre; NNPCL – N568/litre; TotalEnergies – N570/litre; and Mobil – N570/litre, had shorter queues.

Conoil, Enyo and Oando at Berger in Lagos had no product to dispense. Read More: https://legalattorneyblog.com/2023/08/00/petrol-lagos-fuel-stations-shut-down-over-speculation-of-pump-price-hike/

While some of Total Energies stations were seen dispensing, a branch of the station located on the Berger axis was locked.

Others, such as Worldoil, Fatgbems and Quest in Ogun State, shut their outlets.

The Chairman of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Satellite Depot, Akin Akinrinade, told The reporter that the depot had not loaded products in the last three weeks.

According to him, even the NNPCL Retail depot is currently operating skeletal dispatching of products.

“From our end, the issue has been with the pipeline vandalism, which we raised an alarm over since July. Satellite depot has not loaded any product in the last three weeks, and whenever there is a problem here, it will affect Lagos and the whole of South-West.

“Although I don’t know what has been happening in other depots, from what we gathered yesterday, even NNPC Retail has been operating skeletal product dispatching.

The NNPC Retail loaded just three to four trucks to Ikoyi on Monday. No product was dispatched to other places. I don’t know about other depots,” he said.

The NNPCL Retail has 21 depots nationwide, nine in the North and 12 in the South. However, The correspondent had reported in December how the company abandoned the depots due to pipeline vandalism and now relied on private depots to dispatch products.

Recently, NNPCL has been making efforts to put the pipelines in order. One of those efforts was the Satellite depots in Lagos, which resumed operations last year but was again vandalised in July.

Managers of the Ejigbo Satellite Depot had raised the alarm over incessant activities of pipeline vandals on the System 2B pipeline in front of Good Luck Estate at Idimu, Alimosho Local Council Development Area of Lagos.

A statement released by Akinrinade at that time said, “IPMAN Satellite Depot are constrained with a heavy heart to announce the vandalism of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited pipeline at Idimu in Alimosho LCDA of Lagos State, in front of Good Luck Estate.

“This continuous vandalism is a setback to the effort of IPMAN and NNPCL to ensure uninterrupted supply of petrol to Lagos and the entire South-West region of Nigeria.”

Some depot owners could not import products due to rising foreign exchange.

Sources close to the matter told us that many filling stations had shut down operations as many could not afford to buy products due to high prices at the depots.

“Stations are now cutting down costs because most don’t have enough money to buy products to distribute to their outlets. That is why you see that those with more than one station had to close down some of them,”

Another source who craved anonymity told The News Men, “The economy is tough right now, and marketers have been unable to import products. Emadeb had teamed up with other marketers and brought in about 27 million litres.

“But since then, who else has brought in the product? We are now back to the era of NNPCL being the sole importer and would still continue to dictate the market price.”

A top member of the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria told one of our correspondents that demand now outweighs supply.

“NNPCL has reduced importation. And the whole idea was for private individuals to augment what NNPCL brings in. But marketers are not importing. So NNPCL still remains the only importer,” he said.

When contacted to speak on the development, the spokesperson for NNPCL, Garba-Deen Muhammad, said he was speaking with an official of an oil firm who had an idea about the issue.

He promised to revert, and our correspondent kept calling him for an update but got no response from the oil firm when filing this report.

Meanwhile, Muhammad had stated in June that the company would cut down its fuel imports programme in August once the Dangote Refinery began to push out refined petroleum products from late July or early August. NNPCL owns a 20 per cent stake in the Dangote Refinery.

Muhammad had said, “NNPC Limited is bringing in products from outside Nigeria as a matter of necessity, not as a matter of choice. We would have preferred that we produce here, refine here, sell, and provide the energy security that the country needs.

“Because of the circumstances surrounding our refineries, we cannot allow the country to be grounded. So we have to buy wherever we can get and sell. So, if Dangote products are available, why should we not buy from Dangote?

“There is absolutely no reason. And that is the reason why we are interested in the Dangote Refinery. We are co-owners; shouldn’t we do business with our partners rather than others?”

Corroborating Muhammed, while speaking to journalists after a meeting with oil marketers in Abuja, also in June, the Chief Executive Nigeria Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, Farouk Ahmed, said NNPCL had cut down on importation.

Ahmed had said, “The market is open already; we have to follow the regulations. So, we have rolled out user-friendly policies. Some of them (marketers) have already started putting their applications in place. This is because we don’t want to create a gap. NNPCL is slowing down on their importation.”

Since the end of the fuel subsidy, the price of petrol has risen from an average of between N180/N200 per litre to between N614 and N700 per litre. Although it was later debunked by the NNPCL, rumour had it that the price could go as high as N720 per litre due to the rising exchange rate and increase in the cost of crude at the international market.

The National Controller Operations, IPMAN, Mike Osatuyi, confirmed that oil marketers were not importing because of the price. He, however, said there was no cause for alarm.

“Marketers are not importing because of the price. But marketers can still pick it up from the NNPCL. We know NNPCL would intervene. So, no cause for alarm,” he said.

Further checks revealed many major outlets within the Lagos metropolis did not dispense fuel to customers on Tuesday.

It was observed that between the Berger and Iyanoworo stretch of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, significant outlets like Conoil (two outlets), Total (two outlets), African Petroleum, Oando and Enyo did not dispense fuel to customers.

At the Mobil Filling station adjacent to the Lagos State Secretariat (inbound Alausa), a sizeable queue of motorists waited in line to buy petrol. In contrast, other customers lined up with jerry cans and jostled to get ahead in the row.

The development sparked fears among motorists who expressed concern that Tuesday’s turn of events could be a prelude to an increase in the pump price of petrol.

A cab driver, Babatunde Onifade, who plies between Berger-Victoria Island, told one of our correspondents that the sudden closure of many filling stations along the axis had triggered panic among commercial transport operators who had difficulty buying fuel on Tuesday.

Some filling stations along the Idimi-Egbeda axis were also visited on Tuesday, and it was observed that an outlet belonging to the NNPCL along the axis was not selling.

There was also a queue at an Oando fuel station on the axis.

A motorist, who gave his name as Harry Ugochukwu, said, “NNPC here is not selling, and they sold on Sunday. Only the Oando outlet is selling at the normal price, and as you can see, there is a queue here.”

At Dopemu, inward Agege, it was observed that a NIPCO outlet was selling with little or no queue.

The President of Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria, Billy Gillis-Harry, said, Commenting on the development in the South-West. However, the queues had yet to reach the South-South, North and other regions; the import drop might warrant a row spread.

“People cannot import because there is NP forex to do that, which is not good for a liberalised market. That is why we’ve continued to advocate for rehabilitating refineries in good time to avoid spreading such queues to other regions of the country,” he stated.

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