Shortage, queues to continue till next week

monjola sotubo

March 3, 2015 11:34 AM

The price of fuel has risen as high as N120 per litre while long queues have become a regular sight in petrol stations across the country.

The fuel scarcity currently being experienced in Nigeria is expected to last till next week, according to petroleum marketers.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has said that panic buying by consumers is responsible for the trend.

However, some marketers told Punch that the petrol delivered by the NNPC had just arrived at the weekend and would take a week to go round.

“Most of the vessels came in late on the weekend; but what I can tell you now is that three vessels are offloading as we speak,” a marketer said.

“Cushioning the effect of the product shortage, which has resulted in queues in filling stations across the country, will be very gradual. It may not happen as quickly as Nigerians want it because for the major marketers, they have to receive the product in turns,” he added.

“The situation will ease up definitely; but what we want to tell Nigerians is that they should desist from panic buying of petrol,” the Executive Secretary of the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria, Obafemi Olawore said adding that the NNPC had supplied 58 million litres of petrol to Lagos, which is suffering the worst of the scarcity.

monjola sotubo