‘Stop panic buying’ — NNPC assures Nigerians of 30-day petrol stock

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited says the country has adequate stock of petrol to last for 30 days.

In a statement on Thursday, NNPC Retail, the national oil company’s subsidiary, said petrol queues in Lagos and some other parts of the country are due to reduced depot loadout in Apapa.

NNPC said the reason behind the lag has since been addressed.

“NNPC Retail Ltd. notes the appearance of fuel queues in some parts of Lagos and a few other locations around the country,” the statement reads. 

“This is due to reduced Depot loadout in Apapa, Lagos over a few days, and the root cause has since been addressed.

“We assure all Nigerians that there is ample supply with sufficiency of at least 30 days.”

NNPC, therefore, advised motorists to desist from panic buying as distribution “will normalise over the next couple of days”.

The NNPC recently regained its status as the sole importer of petrol into the country.

Mele Kyari, firm’s group chief executive officer (GCEO), said the situation had changed as licensed private oil companies were unable to obtain foreign exchange (FX) for importation.

“None of them (fuel companies) can do it today. That means we can manage the market situation without creating any subsidy environment. But for them, access to foreign exchange is difficult. We have access to FX; we create FX, therefore, we have access to FX and their access to FX is limited,” he had said. 

Kyari added that the increasing diesel price would have an adverse effect on petrol.