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Fuel scarcity looms
Fuel scarcity looms
•Marketers halt fresh imports
•NLC to monitor sales, supply
FRANCIS AWOWOLE-BROWNE, SOPURUCHI ONWUKA,
Lagos and Correspondent’s reports
THE prevailing scarcity of petrol may
worsen as the six major marketers that control 73 per cent of the market said
they have run out of stock.
The shortage is a fall-out of the three-day nation-wide
strike called by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to protest a recent, but now
jettisoned, eight naira increase in petrol price.
But the NLC warned that it will picket any
marketer that hoards fuel to create artificial scarcity on account of price
reduction.
A survey of the market after the
strike was called off last Friday showed
that most of the stations owned by both the major marketers and their
independent counterparts were still closed to customers.
Sources close to the committee of major
marketers that had been providing import support to the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) told Daily Champion yesterday that the shut
stations had presently run out of fuel.
They could not specify when stocks would
arrive, saying that the marketers have stopped importing own stocks and now rely
on NNPC to provide them with suppliers at subsidised rates.
The sources said the marketers decided to
discontinue investing huge funds on product importation because the domestic
market environment could no longer guarantee returns on their investments with
the restoration of strict price regulation.
"How do you invest in an environment when
you are not making profit? It is not a wise investment decision," one of the
marketers told Daily Champion on telephone.
Another reason for the prevailing
scarcity, Daily Champion gathered, is the precautionary measures taken by
the marketers prior to the strike.
A source said marketers stopped lifting
products a few days before last Wednesday, the first day of the strike, to avoid
the risk of having the volatile product arrive during the industrial action.
He explained that it was dangerous to have
tankers of petroleum products in the way or in the retail premises during
protest, "especially when you don’t know what will happen and when the strike
will be over."
The fall-out, it is feared, could bring
back the era of acute scarcity in the system with severe consequences on the
economy.
An NNPC top shot told Daily Champion
yesterday that the corporation does not have the capacity to sustain fuel
subsidy and satisfy internal demand at the same time.
Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mr Funso
Kupolokun, had at recent seminar said the corporation was sagging under the
weight of huge fuel subsidy bills and called for liberalisation of the market in
forms of product sourcing and pricing.
An NNPC official (names withheld) further
explained on telephone yesterday that looming withdrawal of the major marketers
from importation of products would tend to ugly consequences in the market
because, according to him, NNPC cannot meet market demands alone until the
refineries are fully restored.
He stated that expected return of the
refineries may not entirely phase out importation because they are old and have
depreciated in capacity over the years.
The source added that the corporation was
looking forward to expedited hearing on the substantive case over fuel price
before the Federal High Court so as to take a definite decision on the market
situation.
NLC had led workers on strike beginning
last Wednesday to protest rise in petroleum products prices after NNPC increased
its supply rate to the marketers by N5 from N33.50 to N38.50.
Government had gone to court to stop the
strike but the court restrained all parties to the dispute to return to
status quo ante pending the determination of the substantive case.
While government was to initiate action to
revert prices to old rates, the NLC was also ordered to halt a strike.
Both NNPC and private operators in the
downstream petroleum sector have been pressing for full market liberalistion in
line with deregulation of the sector by government last October.
Meanwhile, amid claims by some marketers
that they have run out of stock, Deputy President of the NLC, Mr Joseph Akinlaja,
told Daily Champion in Lagos, that the congress would begin to monitor
situations as from today to ascertain the veracity or otherwise of the
marketers’ claim.
He said the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD)
unit of National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) would be
used to verify the claims that the marketers had no fuel to be lifted, from the
depots.
The NLC suspended the nationwide strike
after the Federal High Court Abuja had ordered the price slashed to the old
rates.
However, since the strike was called off,
some of the filling stations have remained shut while a few others where the
products are available, are selling above the official price, though they
displayed the price tag of N41.50.
Mr. Akinlaja said Labour and its allies
would not accept any armtwisting from the marketers, saying the seven-day grace
given for total compliance with the court order to revert to the old fuel
prices, would be used to assess true compliance by the marketers.
Said he: "Our tanker drivers will be on
duty as from tomorrow (today) and they will know if there is fuel or not, but
any marketer found loading the products, would have himself to blame for defying
an order of the court.
"Our monitoring team will be out too to
see the situation at filling stations; we won’t take it lightly. If there is any
disagreement on the cost of other things apart from pump prices, that is between
the marketers and government.
Several filling stations nation-wide were
yet to reopen at the weekend after the suspended strike over higher fuel prices
on Friday and agreed to settle for N41.50 per litre of petrol.
The development, if it lingers, may spur
an acute fuel scarcity even as price of petrol per litre in the circumstance at
the weekend, hit N70 in Gombe.
In Lagos, Kano, Maiduguri, Port Harcourt,
Enugu and a few other major cities, Daily Champion checks showed that
many filling stations were still shut.
Enquiries by our correspondents showed
that though many of the fuel retail outfit owners had received directives from
the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) to adjust their pump
meters to N41.50 from the past fortnight’s rates of between N50 - N53, "they are
unwilling because of concerns of huge profit losses inherent in complying with
the directive."
Daily Champion
gathered that some of the fuel marketers would prefer to shut
their outlets, thereby creating a beneficial artificial scarcity of petroleum
products, than sell at N41.50 "given that the overall input at acquiring the
current fuel stock is above N41.50k".
At Total filling station, Lafia, one of
the few still open in the Nasarawa State capital, the dealer, Alhaji Ibrahim
Shehu, said he would first finish selling his current stock at N52 per litre
before reverting to any new price regime.
The story was the same in Asaba, the Delta
State capital, where many marketers failed to open shop or opened at night to
sell for as high as N55 per litre.
In Kaduna, many stations resorted to
selling between the hours of 7.00 pm. to 8.00 pm, then close immediately.
Price range within the period was N52 to
N53 per litre.
Several outlets in Lagos were yet to
reopen, but those who did, had adjusted their prices to N41.50 per litre.
However, fewer vehicles are on the roads,
as in Kano, Maiduguri and Port Harcourt because most filling stations were still
shut for business.
In Gombe, while the product sells for
nothing less than N70.00 per litre in the filling stations, the black marketers
sell petrol at N500.00 and above for a four litre gallon.
When Daily Champion went round
town, it was discovered that most of the filling stations, especially those
owned by the major marketers, were shut while sales was booming for the black
marketers.
The situation created a rise in transport
fares within the state capital.
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