The current nationwide fuel shortage could
persist till the New Year as there have been no conscious efforts by the
government to tackle the problems causing the scarcity.
Saturday PUNCH investigations show that
the scarcity is caused by a flood of reasons, which include the fact that the
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, being almost the sole importer of
petrol, has been struggling to distribute the product nationwide.
Other factors are that the NNPC’s System 2B
Pipeline, vandalised last August, is still out of service, while there are
suggestions that the main importer, NNPC, is likely not importing enough for
domestic consumption, which stands at 40m litres per day.
The System 2B Pipeline pumps petrol from the
offshore Atlas Cove Depot in Lagos to the NNPC Satellite Depot, Ejigbo; Mosimi
Depot, Ogun State; and also to Ibadan, Ilorin and Ore depots.
However, with the pipeline out of service, the
corporation has been finding it extremely difficult to distribute petrol to the
areas the depots cover – and throughout the country.
With the oil marketers being owed huge amounts in
subsidy claims, most of them have been shunning fuel importation under the
subsidy regime, thus leaving the NNPC and a few other marketers to do the
importation.
However, the key problem faced by the NNPC is
that of distribution, with the corporation distributing through very few depots
in Lagos.
“It is impossible for the NNPC to all alone
handle distribution nationwide.
“When marketers were fully involved, they were
discharging and distributing through their depots, but with the current arrangement,
the marketers are mainly out of it and the NNPC is just discharging and
distributing petrol through about six depots in Lagos as against over 20 depots
being fully used for distribution when the marketers were fully involved,” a
top marketer told one of our correspondents.
The marketer said that the distribution challenge
had seen many vessels carrying NNPC imported products queuing up to discharge
petrol.
“If the NNPC tells you that it has 30-day
supply of petrol, ask it whether the product is already discharged in
tanks or it is in vessels on the high sea. The most likely thing is that the
vessels are queuing up to discharge because of the few distribution channels,”
the marketer added.
Besides, our correspondent gathered that there
was always a petrol supply challenge whenever the NNPC was the main supplier of
petrol nationwide.
It was gathered that at most of the private
depots used by the NNPC for fuel supply, it takes about a week for a marketer
to purchase a tanker-load of fuel.
“It is only when you are ready to offer a bribe
that you can get supply in two to three days. There is a backlog of tankers
owned by marketers waiting to lift petrol, which had been paid for.
“So, the problem is mainly about the System 2B
Pipeline not working and everybody having to come to Lagos from all over the
country to buy the product. There is no way the queues could be cleared from
the petrol stations through the current system,” a top employee of a major oil
company told one of our correspondents.
The official said that there was no possibility
that the System2B Pipeline would be repaired soon because many people,
marketers, NNPC officials and some other stakeholders were making billions of
naira from the current shortages that started last September in Lagos.
“You know that our way in Nigeria is to leave a
problem lingering so that we can benefit from it. The NNPC officials are not
eager to repair the pipeline because the present system benefits them.
“In fact, many marketers also like the
situation the way it is because they are making billions of naira from it,” he
added.
NNPC’s Acting Group General Manager, Public
Affairs, Mr. Fidel Pepple, told one of our correspondents early in the week
that the corporation was still awaiting security clearance before it could move
its men and materials to site to repair the damaged part of the System 2B
Pipeline at Arepo, Ogun State.
The nation’s petrol consumption is currently put
at around 40 million litres per day.
However, the Federal Government seems not to be
in a hurry to get the marketers to resume full importation of petrol under the
subsidy regime.
Quite a number of them are still battling with
getting their subsidy claims from the FG as the government is putting each
claim through serious scrutiny before payment.
“The FG is owing my company about N2bn subsidy
claims and it has refused to pay, citing various infractions committed by the
company. Even though we have incontrovertible evidence that we imported cargoes
that we have made claims for, the FG has refused to pay us. We’re incurring
interest on the loan taken from the bank every month and that is why we have
not been participating in importation,” a top executive of one of the oil
companies told one of our correspondents.
The Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala,
had said the N888bn allocated for subsidy payments in the 2012 budget should be
enough to pay petroleum product importers.
She told journalists in Tokyo, Japan, recently
that the fund had not been exhausted and should be enough to pay the subsidy
bills for this year.
“We’ve not exhausted the fund and there may not
be a need for a supplementary budget,” Okonjo-Iweala said.
The FG spent over N1.7tn on fuel subsidy in 2011,
but it has since tightened the payment system and is currently prosecuting some
oil marketers for subsidy fraud.
The government has also constituted probe panels
to unearth the rot plaguing the industry.
Two of the panels, led by a former boss of the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Nuhu Ribadu, and a former Finance
Minister, Kalu Idika Kalu, submitted their reports to President Goodluck
Jonathan on Friday in Abuja, with serious allegations of corruption embedded in
them.
The government is also making efforts to revamp
the nation’s comatose refineries with about $1.6bn set aside for their
turnaround maintenance.
The nation has 445,000-barrel per day crude oil
refining capacity, but has been relying on petroleum product imports for
domestic consumption.
The government has, however, invited the original
builders of the refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna to help revamp
them.
Also, the FG has earmarked N971bn for petroleum
subsidy in the 2013 budget estimates presented to the National Assembly by the
President.
The government’s efforts, according to analysts,
suggest that it may not completely remove fuel subsidy until it gets the local
refineries working optimally.
The country currently saves oil revenue above the
benchmark budgeted price of $72 per barrel in the ECA.
The 36 governors agreed in June to boost savings
in the account to $10bn. Its balance last month was $8.4bn (N1.32tn), the
Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Yerima Ngama, had said on Oct. 12.
The nation’s foreign-exchange reserves have
increased by 28 per cent this year to $42bn. The Nigerian benchmark Bonny Light
crude has also risen by 27 per cent from a June low to $114.52 a barrel.
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