NNPC Apologises To Nigerians, Promises Fuel Scarcity Will Ease In One Week | Details
The Group Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, Mele Kyari, has assured Nigerians that the lingering fuel scarcity will ease off next week.
Kyari said this in a video clip shown on Channels Television on Tuesday evening.
He however said he could not assure that the queues at the fuel stations would disappear, but added that there would be significant improvement in the next one week
In his words:
“Now within the next one week, I’m not saying that you’re going to have zero queues within the next one week, no, because a number of things are out of our control, and of course the market forces will determine some of these issues.
“But I believe that we’re going to see substantial and relative ease compared to today in the next one week. I apologise for the situation on behalf of all of us in the oil and gas industry.”
The GCEO also claimed that the logistics challenge has been responsible for the protracted fuel scarcity across the country.
The NNPCL boss also said the scarcity began with a glitch in road failure resulting from the floods that swept 31 states of the country last year.
He added that a three-day glitch in the transport of fuel would usually take three weeks to resolve.
He further explained that there were other challenges such as arbitrage, and the unplanned changes of having to transport premium motor spirit, by small vessels to the depots, noting that the cost of hiring the vessels had gone up from $21 dollars in January 2022, to $80 on Tuesday.
“Maybe shortage may not be the right word to describe the situation, we have a huge logistics challenge and this has been persistent in the last four to five months. But how did it start? It is important to know what happened.
First, there was a glitch in terms of road failure around certain axis because of the flood which nobody has control over. We were unable to move product to another efficiently.
Once we have a glitch of three days, it would require at least three weeks to resolve the challenge.
Once, we have this situation, a number of things come into play. One is that arbitrage will come, people would like to take advantage of the situation, and they will move product from where it is sold cheaply to where it is expensive.
Greed will push people to hoard the products in their tanks until they are able to sell them at the maximum price. There were also unplanned changes. For instance, once products land in this country, we have to take them by small vessels to the depots.
The cost of hiring those vessels shifted from $21 January last year to $80 today and our compensation template under the current pricing regime didn’t see that coming.”
SEE ALSO: Banks Will Accept Old Naira Notes After Deadline – CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele
Kyari also stated that managing trucks and depots across the country posed a secondary challenge to the distribution of fuel across the country.
The PUNCH reports that the fuel scarcity coupled with the scarcity of both the new and old naira notes have brought untold hardship on citizens, crippling economic activities across the country.
Consequently, protests have broken out in various states and cities across the federation, with citizens lamenting the twin scarcity and its impact of their businesses and everyday lives.
Recall that the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), had also asked Nigerians last week Friday to give him seven days from then to resolve the naira crisis, with two days left to the completion of the seven days requested for by the President.