Fuel scarcity: PPMC assures of constant supply

THE Pipelines and products Marketing Company has assured Nigerians that petro scarcity would soon be a thing of the past as it has put in measures to forestall future occurrences.

Managing Director of the company, Mrs. Esther Nnamdi-Ogbue disclosed this during an update on the fuel situation in Abuja. She said the PPMC has already initiated measures to ensure that the situation eases off completely.

She said eight petrol bearing vessels of about 40 metric tonnes each was being expected into the shores of the country.

She explained that the present scarcity was “caused when there is any issue or breach at any point in the value chain and then when the reaction did not take immediate effect, it reflects almost immediately.”

She added that “There was a sensitization of the public a few weeks ago about the probable situation. However, right now, we have about eight vessels coming in, each of which ranges between 30 to 40 thousand metric tonnes capacity and these should be more than enough to ensure sufficiency.”

This volume of supply, she noted, should be able to give the country enough stock of petrol to overcome the scarcity as it were.

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“We have people trucking out (fuel) from Port Harcourt, Warri, Ogarra, Calabar as alternative sources for Lagos. So, all efforts are being made to ensure that by the weekend, all these would be a thing of the past.”

“Basically, we have the supply of an entire cargo per day; a cargo consists of about 40 million litres of fuel which is the estimated national consumption volume per day in Nigeria. We are hopeful that this will soon be a thing of the past and we are making efforts to ensure that it never reoccurs,” she added.

“We have our staff all over, monitoring to make sure that the volumes brought in are actually discharged. In most of the major or strategic stations, they are selling fuel twenty-four hours, which is throughout the day so that the situation is effectively brought to normalcy.

According to her, the PPMC is also working alongside the oil majors and other downstream firms to collaborate in making sure that fuel queues disappear completely.

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