Some oil marketers in Lagos are now selling petrol at N100 per litre, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.
A correspondent of NAN, who monitored the situation, observed that many filling stations have had no supplies for more than a week.
Some of the marketers, who spoke to NAN on anonymity, denied claims by Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) that marketers were hoarding the product.
“The delay in the release of the first quarter import allocation was responsible for the scarcity,” a marketer said.
“We cannot hoard what we don’t have, government should avoid fire brigade approach to importation of petroleum product since we do not refine petrol in Nigeria,’’ he said
Another marketer also attributed the increase in the ex-depot price from N91.50 kobo to N95 per litre to the hike in petrol price in most filling stations.
He said that other ancillary costs had added to the cost of fuel between N100 to N105 per litre.
“ For instance, the union fees, which usually is 30 kobo, now hovers around 50 kobo, so also the transport cost,’’ said a marketer.
Investigation carried out by NAN revealed that many depots in Lagos were still expecting the product from the NNPC.
The marketers, however, claimed that they were sourcing the product through third parties and could not afford to sell at N97 per litre.
Dr Omar Ibrahim, the Acting Group General Manager (Public Affairs) in NNPC, still insisted that fuel scarcity in Lagos was artificial.
Ibrahim said the corporation would introduce new measures to halt the “artificially-induced fuel scarcity.’’
“NNPC, in conjunction with the Department of Petroleum Resources and the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, will commence detailed monitoring of fuel stations in Lagos and environs,’’ he said.
Ibrahim said that the monitoring would also extend to other states of the federation to check the incidence of hoarding
