The queues for Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol, cleared suddenly in most parts of Abuja, Niger, Nasarawa and other states on Wednesday, following the release of about 67 million litres of PMS by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited to marketers.
Virtually all the major filling stations that used to have heavy queues before, were seen without queues on Wednesday, as most of them dispensed petrol to the cars sighted in their various outlets.
Our correspondent observed that the Nipco, NNPC, Salbas and few other outlets on the busy Kubwa-Zuba Expressway were dispensing products to motorists and had no queues. But this was not the case on Tuesday.
Also, outlets in Nyanya, Nasarawa State, and Zuba, Niger State, sold products to motorists and had no queues on Wednesday, contrary to what obtained the preceding day, where there were very limited filling stations in operation.
Explaining the fuel supply data for the country since January 2022, during a meeting with stakeholders in Abuja, the Group Chief Executive Officer, NNPC, Mele Kyari, said, “Anytime we go down below 60 million litres of evacuation consistently for more than three days, we’ll have a crisis across the country.”
He added, “We know that there may be no valid so-called consumption figure, but we know the evacuation figure. Anytime the evacuation figure goes below 60 million litres daily, you’ll have a crisis.
“I recollect, in October, when the flooding happened, trucks could not go to their destinations, particularly moving from the South into the North and our evacuation went below 60 million, and you can remember what happened.”
Kyari stated that since then, NNPC had done everything possible to keep the supply or evacuation above 60 million litres consistently, as he argued that there was no shortage of fuel going into the market, rather the products might be in the wrong destination.
