188 trucks of petrol supplied to Abuja: DPR

07:55 02/07/2015
Abuja - The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) on Wednesday, said 6.2 million litres (188 trucks) of petrol were supplied to Abuja on Wednesday to ease off the fuel queue in the city.

Mohammed Saidu, Zonal Spokesperson DPR Abuja, stated this in an interview in Abuja.
Queues resurfaced at different filling stations in Abuja and Lagos on Tuesday.

Saidu attributed the sudden resurface of fuel queue in Abuja filling stations to a drop in the lifting of fuel by marketers from Suleja Depot.

He said that about one million litres of petrol were lifted on Monday, while 2.1 litres were lifted on Tuesday as against eight million litres daily supply to Abuja.

The spokesperson expressed the hope that with the increase in the supply of more than six million litres on Wednesday, the queues at filling stations would soon disappear.

He stressed that there was no reason why marketers would want to hoard fuel when the product was available.

Saidu however warned that any marketer caught indulging in hoarding, under-dispensing, or cheating motorists in any form would be made to face wrath of the law.

Similarly, Ohi Alegbe, the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Department, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) attributed the queue to panic buying by motorists.

Alegbe, in a statement said that NNPC had stepped up efforts to maintain stability in the supply and distribution of petroleum products nationwide.

He said that NNPC had enough stock of petrol to service the country for 25 days at a national consumption rate of 40 million litres per day.

He said that it had stepped up product distribution to petroleum marketers and NNPC retail outlets across the country.

He said that the corporation had sufficient stock of petrol at its coastal depots in Port Harcourt, Warri and Calabar, besides the stock at the national strategic reserves.

It has been observed that queues formed at most of the stations as a number of them stopped dispensing due to lack of product.

At the NNPC Mega Filling Station on Olusegun Obasanjo Way, Central Area, long queues of vehicles blocked the flow of traffic on the road.

The ConOil and Total filling stations opposite NNPC headquarters, had long queues that encircled the Bureau of Statistics Complex.

The situation was also the same at Total, Con Oil, Mobil, stations in Wuse, Garki, and some independent filling stations along Berger Jabi Road and on Airport Road.

All the stations were selling at the official pump price of N87 per litre .
However, the black market operators sold the product between N120 and N150 per litre depending on the bargaining power of the buyer.

- NAN