• As FG Restrict Sale to Filling Stations
The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has re-opened some of the 23 private petroleum product depots which it had shut down early August for selling products above the approved pump price.
Investigations carried out by Shipping Position Daily at the depots last week revealed that the DPR had reopened the tank farms after the owners had signed an agreement that products will not be sold above N77 per liter as against the N89 per liter they were selling for.
Apart from this, inside sources at some of the depots told our correspondent that some of the other condition given to the marketers is that petroleum products should be restricted and sold to only marketers with filling stations.
The source told our correspondent that some of the marketers usually load products at the depots but divert them to neighbouring countries of Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Benin Republic. He said that the Federal Government has decided to stop the practice as it has been identified as one of the courses of fuel scarcity in the country.
"DPR has said it that if you don't have filling stations there is no need for you to come to the depot, some of the tankers take the product to other neighboring countries"
"Some of them come from the North, they don't care about the price of the product, some even come from the borders, but right now Government is trying to release the product at a controlled price to only filling stations"
"N77 is the price from the depot right now, when you sell it at N87 you will still get something on it, but before DPR intervention, they were selling the product at a landing cost of N89. This is because they have settled many people on the product. But with the subsidy they will not lose still" the source said.
Meanwhile stakeholders at the tank farms have lamented that the drop in price of the product has led to low activities.
Mazi Obi Chukwuneke, a NUPENG member at Capital Oil depot in Lagos told Shipping Position Daily that shutting down of the depot and the reduction in the price have made them not to be getting many customers again.
“I think it is a lesson to them, and it is making them not to get customers again, the place is scanty right now, unlike when people will be rushing to buy products, some people usually come from the border to buy products here, but now that they have attached the sale to filling stations, we found out that the demand has reduced", he stated.
He reiterated that the tank farms had a meeting and they agreed to comply with the instruction of government.
According to Mazi Chukwuneke, the union has also been affected because there is a reduction in the number of trucks they now receive per day.
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