IPMAN urges Nigerians to disregard strike threat by South-East faction
The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, has urged the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, to allocate 60 percent of petrol imported into the country to independent marketers at official rate to end the perennial scarcity in the country.
IPMAN Public Relations Officer, Chief Chinedu Ukadika yesterday said the wide networks of independent marketers make them the perfect outlets to ensure sustained distribution of petroleum products across the country.
While applauding the management of NNPCL for ensuring that the independent marketers had access to the product in the past few days, he noted that for supply to normalize, independent stations must be given priorities.
According to him, at the Port Harcourt zone, independent marketers were allocated 35 trucks in the past few days at official pump price of N145.60 which has led to the disappearance of queues in the filling stations.
“Here in Port Harcourt, there is no problem for independent marketers for now. We have received 35 trucks so far and we are still expecting vessels for independent marketers.
“Even though the Port Harcourt Refinery depot has been shut down, we are getting from the private depots that NNPCL is using to distribute the product. The private depots are owned by DAPMAN members. At times there are challenges because the depot owners want to load the major marketers first” he stated.
Ukadike explained that while supply has improved it was still not enough to sustain free supply “because the independents still rely on buying from DAPMAN members at N207/210 per litre to sell at their stations”.
He added: “I still canvass that because we have the facilities, because we have the population, because we are located in the nooks and crannies of the nation, independent marketers should be given at least 60 percent of the daily allocations from the PPMC”.
He pointed out that what has transpired in the past few weeks was not actually shortage of the product but price disparity among marketers.
“What happened is a ghost queue because it was not something that was sustainable. We should have been able to get enough products for independent marketers. Now we have 35 trucks but the big question will be when are we getting allocation again?
“We may have to wait for another two weeks but this allocation will last into next week. After then what will follow? Independent marketers will have to go back to private dealers to buy at high cost.
“Now if you go to NNPC Retail stations you will see long queues but at the independent stations you will not find any queues because they are selling at above N200 per litre while NNPC Retail is selling at N179.50 per litre.
“What we have is price disparity and if the independents have the product at government approved price we will sell at N165 per litre cheaper than what NNPC and the major marketers are selling”, he added.