Fuel queues hit Lagos and others as thieves vandalize pipelines

•Marketers stop fuel loading, blame vandals for disruption

•More gas stations closed as import issues hurt supply

Long queues for Premium Motor Spirit, commonly known as gasoline, are beginning to resurface at gas stations in Lagos and Ogun States, and a few other locations in the United States. Southwest.

Although The PUNCH found that there were no queues in Abuja and other northern states, it was learned that Lagos depots were gradually running out of gasoline.

Queues were seen at many stations, especially those on the Oshodi-Ojodu Berger highway and some sections of the Lagos-Ibadan highway, as vehicles waiting to buy gasoline stretched on the freeway, slowing traffic on the service road.

The North West petrol station had the longest queue as it dispensed petrol at 568 N/litre. Others like Eterna – 568 N/litre; NNPCL - 568 N/litre; TotalEnergies – 570 N/litre; and Mobil – N570/litre had shorter queues.

Conoil, Enyo and Oando at Berger in Lagos, had no product to distribute.

While some TotalEnergies stations were seen distributing, a branch of the station located on the Berger axis was locked.

A few others, such as Worldoil, Fatgbems and Quest in Ogun State, have closed their outlets.

The president of the Independent Petroleum Traders Association of Nigeria, Satellite Depot, Akin Akinrinade, told The PUNCH that the depot had not loaded any products at the past three weeks.

According to him, even the NNPCL Retail depot is currently operating a skeletal shipment of products.

“On our side, the problem concerns the vandalism of the pipeline for which we have been sounding the alarm since July. The satellite depot has not loaded any product for the past three weeks, and anytime there is a problem here it will affect Lagos and the whole of the South West.

"While I don't know what is going on in other depots, from what we gathered yesterday, even NNPC Retail is shipping skeleton products. NNPC Retail only loaded three to four trucks at Ikoyi on Monday. No product has been shipped to other locations. I don't know of any other repositories," he said.

NNNPCL Retail has 21 depots across the country, nine in the North and 12 in the South. However, The PUNCH reported in December how the company had abandoned depots due to pipeline vandalism and now relied on private depots to ship product.

Recently, NNPCL has been trying to clean up the pipelines. One such effort has been the Lagos satellite depots, which resumed operations last year but were vandalized again in July.

Managers of the Ejigbo satellite depot have raised the alarm over the continued activities of System 2B pipeline vandals outside the Good Luck estate in Idimu, Alimosho local council development area in Lagos.

A statement released by Akinrinade at the time read: “IPMAN Satellite Depot is forced with heavy heart to announce the vandalism of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited pipeline at Idimu in the LCDA of 'Alimosho of Lagos State, in front of Good Luck Estate.

“This continued vandalism is a setback to the efforts of IPMAN and NNPCL to ensure an uninterrupted supply of oil to Lagos and the entire South West region of Nigeria. »

The PUNCH also found that some depot owners were unable to import products due to rising currencies.

Sources familiar with the matter told The PUNCH that many gas stations had closed as many could not afford to buy products due to the high prices in deposits.

“Stations are now cutting costs because most don't have enough money to buy products to distribute at their outlets. That's why you see that those who own more than one station have had to close some of them," one of the sources told The PUNCH.

Another source who requested anonymity told The PUNCH that "the economy is tough at the moment and traders have been unable to import products . Emadeb had partnered with other distributors and brought in around 27 million liters.

"But since then, who do you think else introduced the product?" We are now back to when NNPCL was the sole importer and would continue to dictate the market price. »

A senior member of the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria told one of our correspondents that demand now exceeds supply.

“NNPCL has reduced its imports. And the general idea was that individuals also increase what NNPCL brings. But traders don't matter...