The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) is expressing concern over imminent fuel scarcity in the Southwest unless the Federal Government steps in to immediately.
The association says private depot owners are currently supplying fuel to independent marketers at exorbitant prices, thereby subverting government’s effort to make petroleum products available at controlled prices.
The IPMAN,in a statement by its Chairman at Mosimi,Ogun State, Mr. Samuel Idowu,recalled that independent marketers in the axis have “been buying petroleum products from the depot owners in Apapa at exorbitant prices due to non- availability of same at the NNPC depot at MOSIMI where the products are sold at the government-approved ex-deport prices of N133.28 for petrol.”
The private owners, he added, “are selling petrol for not less than N141 per litre, excluding cost of transportation to our various filling stations which ranges between N4 and N8 depending on the distance or location of the station”.
Mr. Idowu asked government to arrest the looming fuel scarcity by ensuring the immediate commencement of loading of petroleum products at the NNPC depot, Mosimi “where marketers are assured of getting products at government approved ex-depot prices.”
The Mosimi facility has been out of stock in the last one year owning to incessant pipeline vandalism.
The depot was designed to receive and redistribute petroleum products from Atlas Cove to the Southwest states and even up to Kwara State.
Idowu named difficulties at transfer and bridging points as another major challenge faced by independent marketers from Mosimi where “one truck of product is not loaded earlier than three weeks or more depending on the depot where the transfer or bridging is being done in the Apapa axis of Lagos.”
He pleaded with government and the various agencies involved in the fight against pipeline vandalism to redouble their effort to make the menace a thing of the past.”
