Oil marketers have yet to commence the loading of Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol, despite assurances by the Federal Government that the commodity will be available this weekend.
It was gathered that though some PMS vessels had arrived in the country at the NNPC’s Apapa and Port Harcourt depots, loading by independent marketers had yet to begin.
As a result, petrol queues in major cities persisted on Friday despite the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri, earlier promising that the product would be massively available before the weekend.
But the National Operations Controller of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Mustapha Zarma, said on Friday that the loading of products at depots had yet to commence, stressing that the queues could last till Monday.
“Maybe the improvement in supply will start tomorrow or Sunday but as of yesterday (Thursday) and today (Friday), there has not been much loading of products. And even if there has been loading today, I don’t think it is much.
“That is why the queues are still visible. We cannot confirm the massive release of products as announced by the minister until maybe Monday,” Zarma stated.
On whether the petrol being expected was the one from the Dangote refinery, Zarma replied, “I am not in a position to answer that. It is NNPC that should answer that.”
NNPC earlier stated on Thursday that it would start lifting products from the Dangote refinery on September 15, 2024.
Zarma had told our correspondent on Thursday that about 2,000 petrol tankers were still at various NNPC depots waiting to lift products.
He said, “The queues in Abuja are heavy. Nobody is loading. Right now, most of the tickets of independent marketers, which had been paid for since the last three months have not been cleared to load.”
The President of the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria, Billy Gillis-Harry, also confirmed that marketers had yet to start lifting petrol as required.
“We are aware of what the minister said, but we don’t have products yet. We have not started lifting the product as it is supposed to be and that is why the cost is very high in filling stations that have it.
“People struggle so much to get the product to sell to keep their businesses running. Once the products are readily accessible, the price will stabilise and the queues will clear. That is the situation.”
