In a statement to the Senate Committee on Petroleum Downstream in Abuja, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) explained that the reason for the fuel scarcity was due to activities from vandals and corrupt oil marketers.
Mrs. Esther Nnamdi-Ogbue, Managing Director of the Pipelines and Product Marketing Company, PPMC, a subsidiary of the NNPC stated that Nigeria has lost a total of 531 million litres of petrol valued at over N50 billion to pipeline vandals between January and September, 2015, at the System 2B Pipeline network which covers from the Atlas Cove in Lagos to Ilorin.
Nnamdi-Ogbue said that the continuous vandalization of pipeline at the Arepo to Mosimi axis of the pipeline artery, have made the supply of petroleum products to retail outlets difficult.
She said PPMC is doing everything they can to make sure they supply truck-out from depots in Lagos, Oghara and recently Calabar.
She, however, noted that the efforts to supply enough fuel across the country are being hampered by the activities of some unscrupulous marketers involved in hoarding and diverting of petroleum products for sale in black markets across the country.
She said, “We view this as a distortion to the economy and we have invited the DSS and the EFCC to take action.”
The Senate has given the NNPC a two-week ultimatum to end the fuel scarcity.