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Fuel scarcity: DPR sanctions 57 marketers

By on March 7, 2014

Fifty-seven filling stations found to be hoarding and diverting petroleum products in the Federal Capital Territory have been sanctioned by the Department of Petroleum Resources.

According to the department, the disappearance of queues in the Abuja area is a direct result of its stringent monitoring and immediate sanctioning of defaulting stations.

The Abuja Zonal Controller, DPR, Mr. Aliyu Halidu, said this while clarifying his position on the scarcity of petrol when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Gas in Abuja on Wednesday.

He said, “We have checks and balances as to know whether the marketer is hoarding or not. Those we have found hoarding, we have sanctioned them. We have informed the Pipeline and Products Marketing Company to stop them from loading products, and the sanction will remain for at least one month.

“We equally told the PPMC to charge them the commercial value of the product. Within this period, we have found two marketers, one along the airport road and one along the Kaduna road, and we have already informed the PPMC. For DPK (kerosene), we have sanctioned over 55 marketers this year and we have already informed the Warri refinery that they should charge them the commercial price of the product.”

Halidu said it was difficult for the DPR to ascertain the reasons for the current scarcity as it was the duty of the PPMC to supply petrol to depots.

He said the department had developed a pragmatic approach to monitoring the supply of products as soon as they were allocated from the depots.

According to him, due to the intense monitoring by the DPR, most marketers now refrain from bringing kerosene to Abuja and its environs.

Similarly, Halidu said the scarcity of fuel across the country was not as a result of oil bunkering.

He told journalists that reports citing oil bunkering as a key reason for the current fuel scarcity in the country were misleading.

He rather stated that Nigeria would generate more revenue from bunkering if the exercise was resuscitated.

Bunkering is the fuelling of ships of all kinds on the high seas, inland waterways and within the ports.

Halidu said, “The Federal Government will make more money if bunkering is resuscitated because fees will be charged for all bunkering licences. We informed the Senate committee that the process of renewals of bunkering licences is ongoing.

“The fuel we use as petrol is not bunkering fuel. Bunkering fuel is either Automated Gas Oil that we use for generators or Low-Pour Fuel Oil. Those are the bunkering fuels; it is not PMS. So bunkering can in no way affect the supply of petrol because PMS is not used for bunkering.”

Meanwhile, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has said that it has supplied over 209 million litres of petrol to Lagos and other neighbouring cities in the last 24 hours.

The acting Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, NNPC, Dr. Omar Ibrahim, said in a statement on Wednesday that normalcy would soon return to the fuel supply chain in the country.

 

 

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