One week after the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited commenced loading Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol, at the Dangote Petroleum Refinery, most filling stations across the country have yet to get the product.
Independent petroleum marketers who operate over 70 per cent of filling nationwide, told Sunday PUNCH on Saturday that petrol from Dangote refinery had yet to be dispensed to them by NNPC.
When contacted and asked if most dealers have started receiving the product from the $20bn Lekki-based plant, the National President of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Abubakar Maigandi, replied, “We are waiting to start.”
NNPC officially commenced the loading of petrol from the 650,000 barrels per day capacity Dangote Petroleum Refinery last Sunday.
NNPC said at the time that it was to load 16.8 million litres of petrol from the plant, in contrast to the 25 million litres that the refinery had announced earlier as what it would release to the national oil company daily.
The spokesperson of NNPC, Olufemi Soneye, confirmed that over 70 trucks of PMS departed the Dangote refinery last Sunday, which was the first day for the release of petrol from the plant to the domestic market.
Since then, the company has been taking products from the plant, as it also directed major marketers to lift petrol based on agreements with them, but on Saturday it was confirmed that independent marketers were yet to get Dangote petrol.
NNPC, which is currently the sole off-taker of PMS from the Lagos-based refinery, did not immediately respond to enquiries on why IPMAN members have not been allowed to access the product from the Dangote refinery.
The National Publicity Secretary of IPMAN, Chief Ukadike Chinede, also confirmed that members of the association were still awaiting NNPC as regards petrol supply from the Dangote refinery.
Asked if most filling stations particularly those operated by IPMAN members have started getting Dangote petrol, he replied, “No, we have not started getting Dangote fuel from NNPC. As of this time, we haven’t.
“The current situation is that NNPC is still serving us with their imported products. That’s what we are loading for now and they haven’t communicated to us about the issue of Dangote.
“I think what they (NNPC) did was to take Dangote fuel to their own (NNPC) retail outlets because there was no design for NNPC to give IPMAN products via trucks.” |SituationReport|
Most Filling Stations Yet To Get Dangote petrol – IPMAN
