Fuel scarcity: We warned FG – NUPENG, PENGASSAN

The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria ((PENGASSAN) has said if the government had listened to them, the ongoing fuel crisis in some parts of the country would have been avoided.
It said the only panacea was for government to speed up work on the refineries. That alone, it said would enhance fuel supply in the country.
For over two weeks now, economic activities in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial centre have been stunted as a result of fuel deficiency, which was said to have occurred due to vandalisation of a 2B pipeline and the murder of three staff of the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC), a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in Arepo, Ogun State.
The incident has skyrocketed fuel price from 97 naira to N200 per litre in some parts of the country.
It was gathered that the damaged NNPC system 2B, pumps about 11 million litres of fuel per day, which is about one-third of the national daily consumption from Atlas Cove offshore depot in Lagos, to Satellite depot in Ejigbo, Lagos; Mosimi, Ogun State; Ibadan, Oyo State; Ore in Ondo State, Ilorin in Kwara State and some parts of the North.
Speaking on the incident, Acting Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division of the Nigeria National Petroleum Commission (NNPC), Mr. Fidel Pepple, disclosed that the NNPC had taken measures working round the clock to end the crisis.
He said: “As I speak, we have raised daily supply of fuel from Folawiyo tank farm from 150 to 250 tankers, MRS from 100 to 200, Capital Oil to 300 tankers, NIPCO to 70 and AITEO to 100 tankers,” Mr. Pepple said, adding that fuel supply to Port Harcourt, Aba, and Calabar has also been increased. Though Mr. Pepple said the NNPC had 32 days sufficiency and is currently collaborating with security agencies to fix the pipeline and restore normal supply to affected areas, organized labour in the petroleum sector said government was not sincere to Nigerians on the magnitude of the problem. According to National President of Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Gas workers (NUPENG), Comrade Igwe Achese, the crisis may linger until government addressed major challenges in the downstream sector.
“The trend will continue until government shows responsibility and act in the interest of the people,” he said. The NUPENG boss said the problem was beyond damaged pipelines, adding that, “The pipeline in question is NNPC pipeline for product coming in through NNPC. Product coming in from there cannot sustain the country; it is only one channel to Mosimi, Ejigbo and not for the marketers, who are no more importing, and those doing so are selling at exorbitant prices.”
Speaking further, Acheses said there was a need for the government to call stakeholders’ meeting of all marketers to bring the situation under control, noting that government should not hesitate to prosecute fraudulent marketers.
Achese said: “We are happy that Nigerians are now seeing and experiencing this. It started in Abuja, and now is all over the country, and NUPENG is not on strike.
“The real problem is that we completely depend on importation, as none of our refineries is producing anything now. But such can be corrected if the government can make our refineries work.
Meanwhile, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria ((PENGASSAN) had confirmed that the ongoing fuel crisis was beyond pipeline vandalisation in Arepo or anywhere in the country, explaining that the only solution was for the government to put refineries in order.
“The inability of government to provide security for the pipelines and failure to pay marketers, have snowballed into this crisis shrouded in uncertainty.
“Though we are not saying government should condone corruption, neither are we in support of corruption, but we believe government should settle genuine marketers,” the union said.

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