On Sunday, oil marketers urged the Federal Government to evacuate and distribute the supplies still stranded in the depots that the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority recently closed.
Marketers argued that despite the nationwide fuel crisis, the products should be distributed at the set pricing of N148 per liter to help address the shortage of Premium Motor Spirit, more commonly known as gasoline, in specific areas.
The NMDPRA countered that it calculated the effect of the closed depots to make sure that it did not have a substantial impact on the affected areas and that it would now monitor the tanks at filling stations and other depots to prevent the hoarding of gasoline.
The Federal Government said on Saturday that it had stopped operating seven depots in various parts of Nigeria for selling fuel to retail outlets at exorbitant prices.
Farouk Ahmed, the Chief Executive of NMDPRA, who made this information public to journalists in Abuja, claimed that the impacted depots’ actions violated the Petroleum Industry Act of 2021 and also contributed to the current PMS supply problem in the downstream oil industry.
In response, Mohammed Shuaibu, Secretary of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Abuja-Suleja, told our correspondent that the government should do more than just close down depots.
It’s not just closing the depots, he noted. Shutting down the depots while there are goods inside and not selling them to the general public at the set price could lead to more issues with PMS supply.
However, The NMDPRA quelled concerns that the closure of depots would cause a fuel shortage in some regions of Nigeria.
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