The Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) on Thursday said that the withdrawn adulterated petrol from circulation some weeks ago had been re-blended for distribution nationwide
The MOMAN Executive Secretary, Mr. Clement Isong, who spoke in Lagos, confirmed that the re-blending of the sub-standard petrol was almost completed by the major marketers as directed by the government
He said: “We are almost done with the blending of the off-spec petrol. For the majority of MOMAN members, we have almost finished the blending. We have successfully blended out the methanol and it is now on-spec.”
It would be recalled that about five weeks ago, the adulterated imported fuel caused damages to many vehicles, thereby compelling the regulatory authorities to withdraw it from circulation.
Following the withdrawal and poor logistics of getting pure fuel distributed to the market, there was a supply gap which triggered scarcity of petrol nationwide.
The government later set up a technical committee of stakeholders in the downstream petroleum sector, to ensure the re-blending of the off-spec petrol to comply with the acceptable standard.
Noting that though the lingering scarcity of PMS is triggered by the withdrawal of the off-spec petrol from the market, the Executive Secretary said that other factors such as availability of PMS in the international market and the high cost of diesel, compounded the scarcity and made transportation of petroleum products expensive for marketers.
He explained: “There are other factors that came into play. So, to solve the problem, you need to supply about 150 per cent of your usual supply to the country for the queues to disappear.
“The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has ramped-up supply, and that is why the queues are disappearing”, he added.
Speaking on the rising prices of Automotive Gas Oil (Diesel) and Jet A1 (Aviation fuel), the MOMAN Executive Secretary linked the ongoing hostilities between Russia and Ukraine and lack of access to forex by marketers to the problem.
He said: “That war that is ongoing has caused crude oil prices to go up worldwide. It has gotten as high as $130 per barrel. The problem simply is, even if you have the money, it is not so easy to find.
“Marketers are finding it difficult to source products and import them to the country. Then, there is the issue of accessing forex, which has been a bit challenging for marketers.
“So, when you add these two things together, you will understand why we are having this problem”, Isong added.
In the past few weeks, Nigerians had been facing scarcity of petrol, which some marketers capitalized on to illegally hike their pump prices to N200-N220 per litre.
This is even as the price of AGO had risen above N600 per litre in the last few days, due to the scarcity of the product.
