Scarcity: IPMAN warns against panic buying, says petrol will be available Wednesday

Abubakar Maigandi, vice-president, Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, (IPMAN), says petroleum products will be available from Wednesday.

He warned motorists against panic buying.

Maigandi made the caution on Tuesday while speaking as a guest on Newsday, a news programme on Arise TV.

“The government and the NNPC is (sic) on it,” he said.

“There is no way we can sell those contaminated because it will affect motorists.

“But…car owners should stop panic-buying. By God’s grace, today or tomorrow, the product will be available nationwide.”

Nigerians woke up to queues at various filling stations across the country on Monday.

By Tuesday morning, the queues extended across cities as citizens scrambled for various quantities of the products.

It affected Lagos and Abuja as filling stations shut down services, causing long queues.

In some instances, long queues were seen with no petrol attendant to attend to the customers.

The scarcity currently being experienced is said to be due to efforts by regulators to recall contaminated imported petroleum products.

Sources say most of the petrol Nigeria imported under the Direct Sale, Direct Purchase (DSDP) contract through Litasco, an international marketing and trading company of LUKOIL, had a high content of methanol and Ethanol, which are outside the official specification of Nigeria’s petrol.

In a video that circulating online, a petrol attendant was seen complaining about how adulterated petrol supplied to the station is damaging motorists’ cars and motorcycle engines.

When asked who was to be held responsible, Maigandi said IPMAN buys its product through NNPC and private depots.

According to him, in every business sometimes “there must an issue and this has been already understanding (sic) without many damages”.

He, however, said NNPC is working seriously to see that they get the correct product so that the marketers will continue loading.

“Already, we told all our marketers to stand by the various depot that they are loading. Immediately when we start receiving the uncontaminated products, the products will be available in most of our filling stations nationwide,” he said.