Yemisi Izuora
The Director of Department of Petroleum Resources, Mr Mordecai Ladan has given reassurance to Nigerians that the lingering scarcity of petrol will soon come to an end.
However, this assurance is coming as many petrol stations in most parts of Lagos are shut down over non supply of products even as transport fares continue to climb.
Few dispensing outlets in the metropolis are overstretched with long queues that caused heavy traffic.
Ladan who gave the assurance after an inspection of some private depots within Apapa axis in Lagos said that products are coming in gradually in most of the depots visited.
He said that while some depots are currently receiving products there is assurance that more product will soon come again within the nest 48hours.
“I think with all we have seen now in the depots visited, petrol should be available in all filling stations across the country in a few days time.
“It will soon ease out in days to come,” he assured Nigerians.
Ladan appealed to depot operators to give more products to independent marketers’ filling stations because they were most affected by the scarcity of petrol.
He said the independent marketers had filling stations in most major locations in the country and most of them had not received supply for weeks.
The DPR inspection team visited Folawiyo Energy Limited and NIPCO tank Farm in Apapa.
At Folawiyo, Mr Dipo Makanjola said the depot had about 6million litres of petrol and had been operating 24 hours to ensure that Nigerians get the product.
Makanjola said the product belonged to Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and they were loading the product according to the directive of the Corporation.
According to him, the last time we received the product from NNPC was on December 23 and that is what we are loading, we hope to get another supply by Saturday.
At NIPCO, a vessel was discharging over 23 million litres of petroleum as at the time DPR reached the tank farm.
Mr Taofeek Lawal, the Head, Corporate Communications of NIPCO said about 600 trucks of petrol that was given to NIPCO have been scheduled for loading to marketers.
Lawal said with 23 million litres of petrol, the company would load over 600 petroleum tankers in three days, adding that NNPC had assured the company that another vessel carry will arrive on Saturday.
He assured the team that the company would work tirelessly to ensure that scarcity of petrol ease out in few days.