The Holding Bays are Not Working — Oil Operators.

The directive given recently by the government to all depots and tank farm operators who does not have internal holding bays for petroleum tankers to acquire one outside does not seem to be holding water even as some operators have complained about the directive saying that it is not working out yet.
At the state government’s instruction, a massive portion of land had earlier been acquired by a combination of all tank farm operators at Orile Iganmu, also the facility is said to have cost them a whooping millions of naira and it has capacity for about eight thousand trucks at a time.
But even with this, some of them have lamented on the proximity of the holding bay to there different point of operations saying that it is too far and that it takes them hours in the Lagos traffic before getting to their various loading points and this is an impediment to their business, however this might be the reason why some trucks prefer to lay wait on the service lane along apapa Ibafon express way.
One of the operators who claimed anonymity told shipping position weekly that even though they agree that proper cognizance might not have been given to the creation of parking space during the construction of some of the depot facilities, they still want the government to give the idea of external loading bays some time before it can be fully actualized, he claimed that this may seem so because each depot has its individual policies and mode of operations irrespective of the governments directive.
However, while some of the operators lament on the issue, some have showed optimism that it will and is in fact working out but all the industry needs is orderliness and genuine traffic control. Engineer Tony iheanacho of integrated oil and Gas at its office in Apapa Lagos revealed that “some of our colleagues are really complying with the directive but all that is needed is orderliness and traffic control, if they can be limited to the service lane which I believe is being controlled by the navy officers, the idea will bring changes if followed”.
He also identified the retail network acquisition and expansion as three additional outlets in Lagos, one additional outlet in Abuja and one outlet each in Ibadan, Ijebu Ode, Port Harcourt and Enugu.