The question Nigerians should be asking now, is, who is playing games with fuel supply between the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and the Nigeria Midstream and Downstream Regulatory Authority (NMDRA)?
The public was on Sunday inundated with figures in respect of the volume of Premium Motor Spirit PMS or petrol pushed from over 61 depots across the country, yet fuel is not available for buy.
According to the figure reeled out by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), 450.92 million litres were pushed out to the public between January 28 and February 3. The daily average volume pushed out was 64.42 million litres of petrol per day. The figure NNPCL reeled out were gotten from the data provided by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Regulatory Authority NMDRA
It is, however, difficult to know who is to be believed between the two agencies, because this volume of petrol cannot go out from the depots and yet, Nigerians cannot find fuel to buy at their convenience.
Or are the two agencies conspiring to suffer Nigerians because the government has refused to deregulate completely?
How else can we explain 64 million litres of petrol on daily basis pushed out and still, Nigerians are in queues at filling stations every day.
It is either that NNPCL is not supplying enough to go around or that NMDRA is not living up to its responsibilities of proper monitoring of the players in the industry.
Some industry operators have told Business Standards that an owner of a truck laden with 33,000 litres makes as much as N6 million if he takes the product across the border from any Lagos depot, and if it is the eastern part of the country he takes it to, he would rake-in N3million. Truck owners have taken advantage of the high cost of diesel to increase the cost of transporting fuel from one point to the other astronomically, also now have direct access to the depots to lift products.
This is an abnormal situation. It should not be happening in an industry that is governed by rules and regulations. Truck owners normally run an errand for oil marketers that are licensed to retail fuel, but now because the laws have broken down, the regulatory agency looks the other way when this kind of thing is happening. The depot owners who want to dispose off their products quickly and beat down bank charges have decided to aid and abet this anomaly being perpetrated by some of the truck drivers.
The standard price today in many places in Nigeria is between 320 to 400 per litres . Those that are selling fuel at these prices claimed that they bought the fuel from third, and fourth parties at highly exorbitant prices. Meanwhile, the government’s official price at the retail level still remains N187 per litre .
However, for anybody to get fuel at that N185, the person must be ready to sleep at filling stations because the queues at those stations where the official price is being maintained are often very long.
Within the Lagos metropolis, the price of a litre of fuel starts from N320.
It, therefore, behooves on NMDRA to start playing its role as a regulator.
It should begin to act appropriately by bringing those that are sabotaging the efforts of the government to books.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) revealed that the average daily volume of 64.42 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) were evacuated from 32 top and 29 other loading depots and terminals across the country in one week (January 28 – February 3, 2023).
According to NNPCL, eighty-nine (89) percent of all evacuations took place at the top 32 loading depots, with the minimum evacuation of 5.25million litres from Emadeb depot Energy Services Limited (EESL), located in Ijegun, Satellite Town, Lagos and maximum evacuation of 57.26 million litres at Pinnacle Oil, Lekki.
The NNPC’s report stated that twenty-nine (29) other loading depots evacuated eleven per cent (11%) of the available volume as Salbas Oil depot recorded the maximum evacuation of 4.71million litres, while Nepal had the lowest evacuation of 200,000 litres.
Major Load-out Depots:
Aiteo 23.29million litres, MRS Ltd- 22.66 million Litres, Masters Oil and Gas- 22.66million litres, NIPCO- 22.45million litres, Bluefin- 20.08 million litres, Bond Global 16.12million litres, 11PLC-14.19million litres, RainOil- 14.42million litres, Total-OVH JV- 14.19 million litres, Sharon, Koko- 10.98million litres, Danmarna Pet- 9.92million litres, ConOil Lag 9.54million litres, and Shema Pet-9.31 million litres.
Others are SHAFA Energy- 8.92million litres, Prudent -8.32million litres, , A.A Rano-8.24million litres, Energygreen- 8.03 million litres, TSL- 7.70million litres, WABECO- 7.60million litres, HOGL- 7.28million litres, WOSBAB -7.13million litres, Total Apapa – 7.03million litres, CYBERNETICS- 6.93million litres, BONO- 6.78million litres, BOVAS Bulk- 6,55million litres, BOVAS 6,52million litres, SOBAZ Nig,Ltd -6.47million, T-TIME 5.50million litres, PPMC Warri -5,32 million litres.
Mini Load-Out Depot:
MAO oil& gas depot- 4.62million litres, Stallionaire- 4.54million litres, AIPEC Ibafo 4.43 million litres, ANMASCO-3,53million litres, MATRIX- 3,53million litres, Ever Oil- 3.38million litres, PPMC Calabar-2.81million litres, Gulf Treasures- 2.64million litres, Specialty-2.24 million litres, FYNEFIELD- 1.56million litres, Techno- 1.41million litres, Alkanes -1.36million litres, A.Y.M Shafa- 1.33million litres, SWIFT- 1.06million litres, ASCON- 980,000 litres, First Royal -890,000 litres, MAINLAND-760,000litres, MRS Plc- 750,000litres, Zamson Global- 730,000litres, CHIPET-690,000litres, RainOil Lagos-310,000litres, Pinnacle- 270,000 litres, Stockgap-230,000litres, FATGBEMS-200,000litres, JEZCO-180,000litres, NorthWest-70,000litres, ASHARAMI and Synergy-50,000 litres.
Trucks Dispatched To States
According to the report, it stated that out of 7112 trucks dispatched nationwide, a total of 1,251 trucks were dispatched to Lagos state (being the state with the highest supply), while 847 trucks were dispatched to Abuja, FCT trailing Lagos, and Ebonyi State received only 22 trucks of PMS, being the lowest dispatched in the period under review.
The number of trucks dispatched to other states includes: Oyo state-372, Ogun- 311, Kano-268, Delta- 284, Adamawa -246, Kwara -286, Bauchi- 212, Niger-213, Katsina-209, Kaduna- 175, Kebbi- 168, Kogi- 156, Edo- 159, Anambra- 131, and Nasarawa- 146.
Others are Ondo- 140, Yobe-115, Plateau- 140, Gombe-115, Sokoto- 97, Taraba- 101, Osun-108, Benue- 102, Akwa Ibom- 84, Imo-73, Rivers- 82, Borno-75, Cross River- 74, Abia- 62, Zamfara- 67, Jigawa -65, Enugu-64, Ekiti-61, and Bayelsa-31.
NNPCL however disclosed that a total of 450.92million litres of PMS was evacuated from all the depots and terminals in the week under review, adding that its Year-To-Date (YTD)daily average was 63.07million litres.
Cause of scarcity
Mele Kyari, NNPCL GCEO, had, last week, revealed that the NNPCL has increased daily petrol supply from an average of 67million litres per day depot trucks out to between 70 million litres and 80 million litres in the last few days to offset the demand pressure.
While attributing the fuel scarcity to the greed of some marketers and fuel consumers alike, Kyari noted that the increased supply to the depot was expected to cover up for the volume of petrol hoarded by customers due to panic buying and PMS being diverted to neighbouring countries by some marketers.
He also noted that the NNPCL has commissioned over 120 Department of States Security (DSS) officials to follow petrol trucks to their locations in Abuja and the environs.
He also added that following the level of normalcy recorded in Abuja due to the intervention of the DSS, security agencies in different parts of the country have also been commissioned to also monitor the movement of petrol trucks from terminals to the retail outlets in different states.