Petrol scarcity: NNPC apologises to Nigerians, promises ‘substantial ease’ by next week

Mele Kyari, group chief executive officer (GCEO), Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, says the ongoing petrol shortage crisis will significantly improve in the coming week.

Kyari had earlier blamed the prolonged scarcity on greed and arbitrage in the entire petroleum value chain.

In a pre-recorded interview aired on Channels Television on Tuesday, the national oil firm leader, said the scarcity will ease up substantially from next week.

The NNPC boss, however, said he could not guarantee that there will be no queues at filling stations.

“I am not saying that you are going to have zero queues in the next one week. I cannot guarantee that because a number of things are out of our control, and of course, market forces will determine some of these issues,” Kyari said.

“But I believe that we are going to see substantial and relative ease compared to today in the next one week.”

Kyari also apologised to Nigerians for the hardship they have experienced over the petrol scarcity and the resultant hike in pump prices in the past months.

He said the NNPC is working to bring relief to Nigerians.

“I apologise for this situation on behalf of the stakeholders in the oil and gas industry. Definitely, it is not exclusive. Having said this, it is unfortunate,” he said.

“We are responding to this. We will resolve this and we will bring succour and relief to the Nigerian people. No one orchestrated this. We have no benefit in doing this. We have families. We are members and part of these communities.

“We are very proud of this country. We would like this country to prosper, we do not want Nigerians to suffer.

“As a matter of conviction, we do not think anyone should go through this. Having said this, you must have energy security in your country.

“That is what every country does. In every country, you will find out that it is the armed forces who actually keep the strategic stock for their country because that is very critical, so that you do not run into the kind of situation that we are seeing today.

“Even when it happens, you are able to come out of it. By the way, having fuel queues is not local to any country. It happens everywhere whenever you have glitches, price issues, or pipeline issues. 

“We do not hope this happens to our country, but you must have a guarantee of supply in your country, which is why we are focused on delivering our refineries.”

Kyari further disclosed that the country had evacuated an average of 63 million litres since the beginning of the year.

“What we have done from the beginning of the year till today is very clear. We have done an average of 63 million litres of evacuation from the depots. It means we know every truck that has left every depot in this country,” he said.