Substandard Fuel: Nigerian Govt Says Reserves Short By 10 Days

The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority has said that Nigeria currently has 20 days sufficiency of petrol, and advised against panic buying.

The regulatory agency said it was also working round the clock to address the challenge thrown up by the importation of substandard petrol into the country.

Fuel scarcity has hit major cities in Abuja and Lagos this week, and the government said Tuesday it had discovered a recently bought stock contained excessively high methanol above Nigeria specification.

The regulatory agency on Wednesday met with marketers in Lagos in a bid to raise distribution and remove the substandard fuel from supply chain.

The chief executive of the agency, Farouk Ahmed, attended the meeting, as well as top officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd., the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) and the Depots and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria (DAPPMAN).

Ahmed said a technical team was working on resolving the issue. He said the government has a 10-day shortage in its fuel reserve.

He said, “Today, I am happy to say that loading has been going on in most of the depots because we have been able to identify, isolate and quarantine the limited amount of gasoline that was affected by the methanol volume that was discovered.

“We have vessels that have arrived the country recently.”

“At least six arrived in the last few days ordered by the NNPC carrying a total volume of close to 300 million litres just to close to gap created by those vessels we have withdrawn from the system,” he said.

“All in all, as at today, we have about 20 days sufficiency of PMS in the country. Our ideal days of sufficiency is 30 but the withdrawal of the vessel created the gap in our 30 days sufficiency.