Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
Fuel scarcity has returned to Lagos, sparking fears of crippled economic activities, Business Post has learnt.
Across several filling stations in Alimosho Local Government on Tuesday morning, many retail stations were closed and the ones that opened are filled with long queues, creating gridlocks.
Although the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited has not reacted to the developing situation, trends show that this may be due to the flood situation.
Already, petrol scarcity is biting harder in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and environs due to what is regarded as the biggest flood crisis in the country in a decade.
Now, this may be spreading faster to other parts of the country as is evident from the development observed by this newspaper.
Yesterday, the spokesperson of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association (IPMAN), Mr Chinedu Ukadike, blamed the lingering scarcity on the delay in the arrival of product vessels.
He said this has led to a drop in the stock sufficiency level of the NNPC Limited but added that the vessels were just arriving.
“For us, the independent marketers, we are service oriented, and we normally buy our products from NNPC, private depots, and private tank farm owners and some of them are located in Lagos, Warri and Port Harcourt knowing fully well that we import petroleum products in this country, and most of these products are vessel driven depots, and they collect products from ships.
“Recently, NNPC and the PPMC, I think there is a shortfall in the sufficiency they have in stock because some of the mother vessels they are expecting are just arriving there was a little delay and some of the logistics in handling charges in the depots, so these are the issues that have truncated the chain of supply.
“Because some of these mother vessels that were supposed to arrive Nigeria and be able to distribute and send to these private depots, there was a little delay in payments and receipts and NIMASA,” he said.
He noted that although the flood had subsided as some depots were out of stock.
Business Post recently reported that a renewed artificial scarcity was caused by the ravaging flood in the country.
