National oil company denies PMS price review claims
The queues by motorists for Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol, particularly in Abuja and northern states have refused to clear despite the supply of about 1.824 billion litres of PMS by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited.
Also, the NNPC on Sunday denied claims that it had reviewed the ex-coastal, ex-depot and the NNPC Retail prices for petrol downward. It described the claims as fake news, in a series of tweets via its official Twitter handle.
Figures obtained by our correspondent from the company on Sunday showed that between February 14 and March 13, 2022, the oil firm released a total of 1.824 billion litres of petrol in a bid to keep the country wet with petrol.
But the queues in filling stations, which were triggered by the imports of adulterated fuel in January this year, refused to disappear and had persisted for about two months.
Meanwhile the presence of black marketers who sell petrol in jerrycans is currently a normal sight in Abuja, as some filling stations in the capital city now dispense PMS far above the approved price of N162-N165/litre.
A filling station in Kubwa, Khalif Civic Oil and Investment Limited, for instance, dispensed petrol at N280/litre on Sunday and still had queues of motorists, while the few major outlets that had products were greeted with massive queues.
However, despite efforts by the firm to keep the country wet with petrol, the queues in the nation’s capital have refused to clear, as well as in some other locations across the country.
The few filling stations along the Zuba-Kubwa expressway that dispensed petrol on Sunday, such as A.A Rano, Nipco and the NNPC, had lengthy queues.
Similarly, the queues in the two filling stations, Conoil and Total, located directly opposite the headquarters of NNPC in Abuja, have continued to be greeted with queues since January, as the queues persisted on Sunday.
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, and the Group Managing Director, NNPC, Mele Kyari, had repeatedly stated that efforts were ongoing to clear the queues nationwide.
Also, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority had assured citizens in Nigeria that the queues would be cleared following the imports of billions of litres of petrol by NNPC.
Their promises have, however, not materialized in full yet.
Meanwhile, NNPC tweeted on Sunday that “it has come to the attention of the NNPC Limited that the company has reviewed ex-coastal, ex-depot, and the NNPC Retail prices. This is not true.”
Punch
