Lagos fuel scarcity signifies crisis as PH refinery repairs linger

Signs of petrol scarcity have been noticed in Lagos since Monday as motorists queue at the few filling stations for hours to buy the commodity where it is available.

Many sales outlets do not have petrol as they closed their premises, some with a ‘No Petrol’ sign boldly displayed at their gates.

The scarcity caused gridlock in some parts of the state as the queues blocked sections of the road.

The situation led to sudden increase in transport fares within the metropolis, some as much as 20 percent increase, while many commuters resorted to walk a long distance to their destinations.

Although, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) has assured that it has enough petrol in stock, many people express fears that the situation might extend to other parts of the country.

This is coming on the heels of the NNPCL’s failure to deliver the Port Harcourt Refinery which it said would resume operations last December after a long period of undergoing repair. As in previous cases, the NNPCL failed to meet the target.

In a press release on December 21, signed by NNPCL’s Chief Corporate Communications Officer, Olufemi O. Soneye, titled “NNPC Ltd Fulfils Promise, Delivers Port Harcourt Refinery … Achieves Mechanical Completion, Flare Start-up of Refinery’s Area 5 Plant” the national oil company claimed it had achieved its target of returning the facility to production this month.

“In our quest to ensure that this refinery is re-streamed to continue to deliver value to Nigerians, we made a promise that we will reach a mechanical completion of phase one of the rehabilitation project by the end of December and get the other plants running in 2024. Today, we have kept those commitments,” it quoted NNPCL Chief Executive Officer, Mele Kyari as announcing during a facility tour of the plant.

However, industry experts and inner members of the Refiners countered the claim by NNPCL, maintaining that the refinery was far from the state of resuming actual production.