Marketers see high diesel cost adding encore twist to fuel scarcity
the improvement in fuel supply through the massive importation of Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC).
Clement Isong, MOMAN’s executive secretary, confirmed the improvement in supply of fuel currently and the fears being nursed by operators.
He said NNPC is flooding the market, stating further that for NNPC to keep scarcity off the country in the last six to seven years it has to oversupply the system, knowing that a lot of the product would cross the border.
Quarantining imported product which is laden with methanol and not allowing it to get to the market created a supply gap which triggered scarcity of the product across the country
To address this situation, the government decided to set up a technical committee of stakeholders in the downstream petroleum sector, to carry out the blending of the off-spec petrol, to comply with the acceptable standard.
The MOMAN chief executive said his members are almost done with the blending of the off-spec petrol.
“For the majority of MOMAN members, we have almost finished the blending. We have successfully blended out the methanol and it is now on-spec,” he said.
He noted that the lingering scarcity of PMS was triggered by the withdrawal of the offspec petrol from the market, but had been compounded by other factors.
According to him, these include, the availability of PMS in the international market and the high cost of diesel, which have made transportation of petroleum products expensive for marketers.
“There are other factors that came into play. So, to solve the problem, you need to supply about 150 percent of your usual supply to the country for the queues to disappear.
“The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has ramped-up supply, and that is why the queues are disappearing,” Isong said.
On the escalating prices of Automotive Gas Oil (Diesel) and Jet A1 (Aviation fuel) in the country, Isong noted that the ongoing hostilities between Russia and Ukraine and access to forex by marketers were responsible.
He said that the attack on Ukraine by Russia had led to an increase in the prices of crude oil and all its derivatives, including diesel and aviation fuel.