Two weeks after Niger Delta Militants blew up the Abiteye flow station and Sagara Chevron pipelines in Warri South West Local Government Area of Delta State, operators in the petroleum sector have fingered petroleum marketers in the attack, alleging that they were trying to create artificial fuel scarcity in order to make money.
The attack on the pipelines came few hours after multiple explosions rocked several oil installations between Ikpokpo and Odidi flow stations, mostly in Gbaramatu kingdom.
But industry operators have observed that petroleum marketers were not satisfied with the drive of the present administration to ensure petroleum products available at lower cost to Nigerians and its attempt to stamp out the corruption in fuel importation.
An Industry source, Mr. Olanife Adeoye in a chat with Shipping Position Daily alleged that it is not a hidden fact that marketers were behind the attack on the pipelines. He observed that since the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has made the supply of fuel stable all over the country, private depot owners and filling station owners are no longer having a field day.
According to him, the private depots are no longer thriving in fuel importation because NNPC refineries were functioning and piping enough products to NNPC depots all over the country. He said that the marketers are not happy about this progress.
“Marketers are trying to sabotage local refining of our products by causing artificial scarcity, because they can no longer sell fuel for N130. They knew they cannot sabotage it at the lower level so they had to go and blow up the pipelines so that the refineries would not be able to supply enough”
“The refineries were piping it directly to the NNPC depots from where it is pumped to Mosimi, Ejigbo, Ore and so on in order to serve the country” Olanife stated.
Speaking in the same vein, a fuel retailer, Comrade Gbadegeshin Adetona, in a chat with our correspondent noted that despite the improved operations of the refineries, the Petroleum Product Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) was still supplying tank farm owners with quarterly allocations.
“They were still supplying Folawiyo and Capital Oil with allocations, NNPC gave all of them allocations, but due to their inability to wait for their own turn, they would go and buy from a third party and sell at exorbitant price”
“They wanted the situation to continue. But government has warned them that if you but at high price, you have to sell it at government fixed price”
Adetona told our correspondent that some of the depots currently still sell fuel at a high price, but nobody is buying from them.
“I heard that ASCON was selling at high price because he bought from a third party, those buying from them will not be able to sell at government’s price”
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