Oil marketers explain reason for fuel scarcity

Oil marketers under the aegis of Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN), have laid the blame on the fresh fuel scarcity on the doorstep of the National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited.

The President of the association Billy Gillis-Harry, while appearing on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief breakfast programme on Monday, accused the major oil supplier in the country of not supplying them with the product.

“NNPC has its own outlets that they also serve. So, if they have some logistics issues, that will possibly be what is internal to NNPC. But as for us, PETROAN members, we can tell Nigerians for real that if we have petroleum products delivered to us, supplied to us upon payment for those same products, we will supply them to Nigerians.

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“I would like to correct Nigerians that we retail outlet owners or marketers as they generally call all of us is not the reason for this. We do not have any reason not to serve the public and we are willing to serve the public. All that is required is for us to have petroleum products delivered to us from NNPC and we will make sure that our retail outlets are open, some of them are even open for 24 hours.

“The challenge of logistics is only relevant to the NNPC retail outlets.”

While some motorists were lucky to get fuel at some retail outlets for between N700 and N,1200 per litre after hours of sweat and sweat, others weren’t so lucky as many retail outlets were shut, with their excuse being supply challenge.