Marketers’ insist inability to sell fuel at N145 after landing cost of N171
Several oil and gas analysts had before now explained that Nigeria is a nation where rising global oil prices comes with dual regime: the regime of happiness and regime of frustrations.
But most of the time, the associated frustrations outsmart the so called advantages.
In details, the singular advantage from high oil price to Nigeria is that the federal government earns more and saves more in Excess Crude Account (ECA), but the ill winds stretch from hike in petroleum products prices to crisis driven by scarcity.
For the fact that Nigeria remains a refined products importing country, no matter the number of barrels of crude it sells, the situation will continue to be painful to the citizens unless local refining capacity is at the maximum.
This formed the pivot of the ongoing disagreements between independent marketers and the federal government.
Only yesterday, the Chairman of Depot and Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (DAPMAN), Mr. Dapo Abiodun, made it clear to the Federal Government that petroleum marketers could no longer sell petrol at N145 per litre.
Abiodun stated this in Abuja at a stakeholders’ meeting convened by the Federal Government to find a lasting solution to the recurrent and persistent fuel crisis. The meeting was chaired by the Chief of Staff to the President, Mr. Abba Kyari.
The DAPMAN boss in defending marketers’ insistence that no marketer during the December fuel scarcity hoarded petroleum product, explained that the rise in crude oil prices as a result of Hurricane Katrina in the US led to a sharp increase in the landing cost of petrol, a situation that resulted into the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) being the sole importer of petrol.
“Today’s meeting was called at the instance of Kyari, and it was to find out exactly what happened, where we had problems in December with regards to supply shortfall and what could be done going forward to avert such crisis.
Other members of the committee are the NNPC Group Managing Director, Maikanti Baru, most parastatals under the ministry, Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria(IPMAN), Depot and Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (DAPMAN), Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN), labour unions (NLC and TUC), among others.
The meeting which held at the State House Conference Centre (Old Banquet Hall), also had in attendance the DG SSS, Comptroller of Nigeria Immigration Service and representatives of other paramilitary services.
Kachikwu at the meeting, noted that the meeting was not fault finding but to find a lasting solution to the problems and ensure it does not occur again as directed by President Buhari.
According to him, “The whole idea was to do a centric analysis of what really went wrong. Like you know for over two years, we have been out of this problem; it’s been working well; NNPC has been managing it properly and suddenly there was this gap. So they wanted us to put heads together to find out what went wrong.”
