The Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association blamed the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation for the scarcity in the country due to the shortfall in supply to depots.
Its Executive Secretary, Olufemi Adewole, told the News Agency of Nigeria that the inability of NNPC to make provision for adequate import caused the wide gap.
According to him, it is only the NNPC that is bringing products.
Adewole explained that the reason marketers were not importing was that the landing cost of petrol had increased to about N172.76 per litre.
He added: “If you add all the distribution costs, the pump price will stand at N182.17 kobo.
“But the government is saying we should sell at N145 without subsidy.
“That’s why we have to depend on NNPC to sell to us.
“We cannot import because no marketer can import at that big margin.
“We also noticed a supply gap in what they brought in.
“It was not enough at a particular time and the result is what we are seeing today.”
Adewole said the gap in petrol importation shortfall was noticed during a meeting of vessel importers with the Nigerian Ports Authority when NNPC failed to declare its imported vessels, adding that NNPC ought to have disclosed numbers of cargoes expected in December.
He urged the management of NNPC to urgently replenish the stock to avoid depot owners and marketers running out of stock.
He added that if the refineries were working at optimal capacity, the country would not experience scarcity.
The DAPAMA scribe said the oil and gas stakeholders knew there would be scarcity long ago, but it was systematically managed to avoid creating panic buying.
Adewole said: “NNPC should have adopted the same method applied in December 2016 to address fuel scarcity because they knew that there would be high demand of petroleum product in December.
He said: “It is only NNPC that is bringing products in.
“We also noticed a supply gap in what they brought in.
“It was not enough at a particular time and the result is what we are seeing today.”
Adewole said full deregulation of the downstream sector remained the best option to address ongoing lingering fuel scarcity because marketers would source for foreign exchange to bring the product and sell at profitable price to avoid scarcity.
He said: “That remains the long term solution to frequent fuel scarcity of petrol during yuletide period.”
