Operators Groan As Sealed Tank Farms Remained Shut

Downstream operators have lamented that the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) have not reopened some of the petroleum tank farms it had shut down last week.
Some marketers who spoke with Shipping Position Daily last week lamented that customers who had paid huge amount of money to load cargoes from these depots are now stranded and monies tied down.
Specifically, an operator; Mr. Fidel Aisodionne told our correspondent last week that one of the closed depots, Total Petroleum, had diverted all tickets booked at the depot to other PPMC depots.
He said that owners of the cargoes are currently going through challenges before they can access these PPMC depots and that the development has led to additional cost for marketers.
"The depots have not been re-opened, in the case of Total, their customers were asked by Total to go to other PPMC depots to load products, but this has proved to be a big challenge"
"We usually have allocations for each depot, but for those trucks that have been booked at Total they have to go to other PPMC depots around Lagos and even outside Lagos" he said.
Continuing, he said "The marketers have to get to the location, face more stress and pay more money. The Total has a very big network and they direct you to any of it"
He however said that since the sealing of the depots two weeks ago, scarcity of petroleum products have reduced drastically.
Shipping Position Daily recall that, when DPR’s surveillance monitoring team visited Apapa in  Lagos recently to conduct a raid of the depots, it was discovered that Total and Eterna Oil were hoarding 13.6 million litres each, while Dee Jones was hoarding about 19.5 million litres.
The agency also accused Ascon Oil Limited and Integrated Oil and Gas Limited of infractions in the discharge of fuel, but ordered the affected companies to report to its for further discussion on how to normalize the situation.
The agency said such actions were seriously frustrating efforts of the federal government to wet the country with sufficient levels of the product.
Addressing journalists during the inspection, the Director of DPR, Mr. Mordecai Danteni Baba Ladan, stated that the sealed depots would pay a fine of N2 million each, while the others should explain why they were loading at very slow pace.