Petroleum marketers have revealed that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has initiated the release of its reserves across the nation to resolve the prolonged fuel scarcity.
This was made known in a separate statements on Saturday by the National President of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Hammed Fashola, and Billy Hilly-Harry of the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria, following a meeting with NNPCL.
Fashola stated that his members would convene on Monday to collaborate with NNPCL in resolving the fuel scarcity, while also advising Nigerians against panic buying as fuel will soon be readily available nationwide.
“We are officially meeting with other marketers on Monday. We are working closely with NNPC.
“The Monday meeting is for our National Executive Council. After the meeting, we will reach out to the NNPC. We talk with them every day.
“The meetings we have been having with the NNPC are in collaboration, which we have been doing.
“If you notice, yesterday (Friday), NNPC opened up their reserves in all the depots throughout the federation. We are working with them to ensure that everywhere is wet so this thing (scarcity) can disappear,” he said.
Hilly-Harry added that the meeting between NNPCL and marketers had yielded positive results in addressing the fuel scarcity issue.
He noted that queues had begun to diminish in Abuja over the weekend.
“The good news is that this is a new reality. It will bring better solutions because the result will be fantastic when you have NNPCL doing what they must do, and we also do what we must do.
“If you go to Abuja today (Saturday), you will see that the queues have eased off”, he said.
Despite assurances from NNPCL regarding product availability, Nigerians have been grappling with fuel scarcity for weeks.
