About? a week after the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) sealed up 23 private petroleum products depots across the country for selling Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) to marketers above ex-depot price of N77.66 per litre, stakeholders have started reacting to the closure saying that fuel scarcity is imminent.
While some of the stakeholders who spoke to Shipping Position Daily at the tank farms last week agreed with the DPR, some of them condemned the action, saying that the agency should have given the marketers an ultimatum.
About? a week after the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) sealed up 23 private petroleum products depots across the country for selling Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) to marketers above ex-depot price of N77.66 per litre, stakeholders have started reacting to the closure saying that fuel scarcity is imminent.
While some of the stakeholders who spoke to Shipping Position Daily at the tank farms last week agreed with the DPR, some of them condemned the action, saying that the agency should have given the marketers an ultimatum.
Our correspondent gathered that some of the 23 tank farms that were affected in the closure included: Sahara Energy, Integrated Oil and Gas, Ascon Oil as well as tank farms located along Mosheshe Avenue at Kirikiri town as well as others in Calabar, Warri and Delta.
Speaking with our correspondent, a marketer operating at Techno Oil Limited, Mr. Onward Onwudiwe berated the DPR for failing to give ultimatum to the marketers before shutting down their premises.
Onwudiwe argued that the products in the tank farms was imported by the marketers at a higher price when the demand for fuel was very much in the country, and as such, they should not be expected to run at lost.
"If this is what DPR wanted to do, they should have given them ultimatum, many of the tank farms are still having products that were bought at a high price and they cannot sell it now, if they are allowed to sell the product at a reasonable price, they would not gain much but they would probably not loose"
"As far as independent marketers are concerned, they are selling according to what they bought, and they cannot sell the product at the price that the government want them to" he said.
The marketer lamented that people are now scared to come and buy products at the depot and even the depots that have product are no longer loading. This according to him might lead to artificial scarcity because the refineries were not yet working optimally to meet the need of the country.
"The refinery is working but it cannot product fuel that will get to the reach of all Nigerians. If production is increased, the market will be competitive"
"Right now, people are waiting for the products to crash, they are not going into oil business, now tankers are parking and it is very difficult to pass on the roads"
Also speaking on the closure, a NUPENG member at Sahara Energy; Simeon Eze commended the DPR action saying that rules and regulations of the DPR must be respected and followed.
"We are in a country where rules and regulations exist, otherwise if we don't have law and order people will go astray"
"The union will try to find out if it is not done properly so that it can intervene, but if it is done properly the depot owners should know how to get out of the quagmire"
"Union is not all about to kill all the time, there is always a relationship between the government and the union and between union and depot management's, so they look at matters objectively as they come" he said.
The DPR Director, Mordecai Ladan, in a statement in Abuja on Sunday, August 2, 2015, said that the clampdown on the private depots followed the report of a special investigation team set up by DPR to uncover some unwholesome practices by the private petroleum products depots following a tip-off
The director added that the depots would remain sealed until some conditions were met by the owners, including payment of N2 million fine and an undertaking that the PMS would not be sold to bulk buyers.
It also said that all subsequent sales would be at N77.66 per litre as approved by the Federal Government, adding that DPR would monitor the sale of the remaining and subsequent products.
The statement further said that DPR had directed all of its offices to ensure that all filling stations sell PMS at government approved price of N87.00 per litre regardless of source of source depot.
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