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| Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu |
Contrary to the pledge by the Minister
of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, that lingering fuel
scarcity in the country would end on or before Thursday, April 7,
marketers and depot owners said on Sunday that consumers might have to
endure inadequate supply of the product till May.
The minister had initially given May as
the most likely date for the fuel scarcity to abate but was forced to
recant and say the situation should normalise latest by Thursday
following criticisms from different segments of the country.
A source among the marketers told one of
our correspondents in Lagos on Sunday that the situation on the ground
did not give any hope that petrol would be readily available at filling
stations this month. The source, who spoke on condition of
anonymity, said only one of the three parking spaces at the Apapa Port
was discharging Premium Motor Spirit, adding that instead of the two
vessels that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation had promised
would discharge by last weekend, only one actually came in. According to the source, the vessel,
which carried 21 million metric tonnes of petrol, berthed at the Apapa
Port on Thursday and only commenced discharging its content on Saturday.
Another source, who is an official of an
independent marketer, said though his firm got the second quarter
import permit just before Easter, it usually takes about three weeks to
arrange all the logistics for importation, including the opening of
Letters of Credit, sourcing for foreign exchange and arranging with
foreign suppliers and shippers.
He explained, “The system is dislocated
and even if the marketers decide to import now, it will take a minimum
of 21 days for the fuel to come to Nigeria. The arrangement before now
was for the marketers to import 60 per cent of the country’s petrol
need, and the NNPC to bring in the balance. “But the arrangement was changed midway
for the NNPC to import 78 per cent, while the marketers were left with
22 per cent. However, the corporation lacks the capacity and facilities
to do this well. It is doing less than 60 per of its allocation; so, I
don’t know what magic it will perform to end the fuel scarcity by
Thursday.”
Another marketer, who spoke on condition
of anonymity, explained that before now, his firm was getting on the
average four cargos of PMS per quarter, but that the number had been
reduced to one cargo of 30 million metric tonnes, which translated into
about 120 trucks to service over 3,000 retail outlets.
The marketers said their ability to import petroleum products would be determined by foreign exchange availability.
The Petroleum Products Pricing
Regulatory Agency had last week released the second quarter petrol
import allocations, with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
given 41.7 per cent and private marketers 58.3 per cent of the national
consumption.
In Lagos, many filling stations did not
open for business on Sunday, while those sold the product had long
queues of desperate motorists to contend with. On the Lagos-Ibadan
Expressway, queues at Mobil and Oando filling stations spilled onto the
road and caused gridlock.
The Executive Secretary, Depots and
Petroleum Products Marketers Association, Mr. Olufemi Adewole, said the
NNPC had assured the marketers that foreign exchange would be provided
for them through the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Adewole said, “As soon as that is
released, our people will start importing. If our letters of credit are
not backed by adequate foreign exchange, our international supplier will
not oblige us. We are still owing them foreign exchange for deliveries
made to us between September 2014 and December last year.
“Government has given us the naira, but
we don’t have forex to pay them. Right now, what they have decided is
that if we want to buy anything from them, we should bring forex. And
the NNPC has assured us that they will give us. Once they give us forex,
our suppliers will release cargos to us.”
Commenting on the increased allocation
to the marketers for the second quarter, the Chairman, Nigeria Union of
Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, Lagos Zone, Alhaji Tokunbo Korodo,
described it as a welcome development.
“I think it will create the enabling
environment for the marketers to contribute their quota to the supply.
But the most important thing is that the government should make forex
available to them as they promised so that we can bring this scarcity to
an end.”
He stressed the need for mass importation of the product to solve the supply challenge currently facing the country.
Meanwhile, international oil companies
in Nigeria’s upstream oil and gas sector are to provide foreign exchange
for the importation of petrol in a bid to help the country address its
lingering fuel scarcity problems. This is coming as the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation announced on Sunday that the country’s three
refineries would commence the refining of crude oil to produce petrol
for local consumption this month.
The Group Executive Director/Chief
Operations Officer, NNPC Downstream, Mr. Henry Ikem-Obih, told
journalists after touring some petrol stations in Abuja on Sunday that
the corporation was working extremely hard to ensure that the queues
were eliminated.
Asked to explain how the corporation
planned to tackle the issue of foreign exchange scarcity for marketers
in order to enable them import products, Ikem-Obih stated that upstream
oil companies like Shell and Mobil, among others, and the NNPC would
work together in making forex available.
He said, “As you know, forex
availability was one of the prime reasons why we didn’t do well in the
first quarter. Most marketers who had allocations could not import
because they couldn’t access forex. The minister has worked very closely
through his own initiatives with the upstream oil companies. So, we
have a number of them on board with us and they will support the local
entities and downstream companies.
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