Petrol scarcity, price hike: NNPCL suspends sales to independent marketers
In the wake of scarcity of petrol and the new price hike, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) has reportedly suspended sales of the product to independent marketers after it hiked the price on Tuesday.
The suspension came despite that three vessels had berthed at the Apapa, Lagos Jetty on Wednesday to discharge imported petrol.
D’GalleryTV gathered that the National Vice President of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Hammed Fashola, told a media outlet that the NNPC halted selling fuel to independent marketers on Tuesday when it raised the price of a litre of PMS to N855 and above across its retail outlets nationwide.
Independent marketers sold the product for as much as N1,200 and N1,300/litre in some states due to the upward review of prices by the NNPCL.
Fashola expressed worries over the suspension without any official communication, even when the marketers had paid for the product two months ago.
On whether any of the independent marketers have stopped going to the depot to lift fuel, Fashola said: “What are they going there to do? They have stopped our loading. All the tickets we have in the kitties of NNPC, they are not treating them; everything has been suspended.”
He added: “Yes, our tickets were suspended for loading. They have not been attending to us since yesterday (Tuesday), and there is no official communication yet.
“It is a very bad situation for somebody who has paid for the product, maybe like two to three months ago, and all of a sudden, you stopped loading, maybe because you want to change the price. And it’s not the fault of that customer, because it is supposed to be cash-and-carry. So, I think the NNPC should look at that situation critically.”
D’GalleryTV gathered that NNPC usually prioritised major marketers while IPMAN members resorted to private depot owners, who sold at higher prices. This leads to a wide gap between the prices offered by both categories of marketers.
“We’re usually forced to go to private depots, it’s not out of our own volition. We were forced to go there because of inadequate supply,” Fashola said.
Speaking on Dangote Refinery fuel which is expected to hit the pumps, Fashola said:
“We are watching the development. We are monitoring it. We will wait, maybe by Friday we will know where we are going by the time the Federal Government makes a pronouncement as regards the price. There is no official communication yet.”
The IPMAN official added that each petrol station sold at their convenient price because NNPC couldn’t fix prices for other operators in the sector.
He stated that the new price announced by the state-owned company is only binding on the NNPC retail outlets.
“You know, NNPC cannot fix the price for us. They fixed the price for their stations. They are now a limited company. They have their retail outlets. That new price is their internal arrangement. So, we are yet to have an ex-depot price or marketer’s price,” he explained.
Fashola is optimistic that the new arrangement would close the price disparity between major and independent marketers. He noted that at N855 per litre, the NNPC was still paying subsidy on petrol.
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