By Adewale Sanyaolu
Fuel queues yesterday, returned to major parts of Lagos with majority of the retail outlets out of stock.
The unsavoury development shocked motorists who thought that the days of fuel queues were over with full deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry.
Findings by Daily Sun across major retail outlets revealed a massive shortage of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), popularly called petrol.
On the Egbeda-Idimu road, retail outlets on both sides of the long corridor terminating at Council bus stop were out of supply.
This was also the same situation within Abule -Egba and environs, Abbatoir road in Agege, Akowonjo road and the popular Lasu-Igando road.
The few filling stations that dispensed petrol had long queues of vehicles stretching some meters. The drivers had little or no hope of buying petrol.
Some of the motorists who spoke to Daily Sun in seperate interviews said the develooment has further compounded their woes.
A commercial bus driver who identified himself as Lasisi Abiodun, said he noticed the queues around 6am yesterday but thought it was the usual dawn rush by people rushing down to their various work places.
He said by 11am, the queues had built further, signalling that there was scarcity of petrol.
He worried that the development was capable of worsening the already troubled economy as transport fares would skyrocket immediately.
More worrisome is the shutdown of operations at most NNPC retail outlet which operates over 900 retail outlets.
In Lagos, most of the NNPC retail outlets were out of supply as at 2pm yesterday.
But the Chief Corporate Communications Officer (CCCO), Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Mr Olufemi Soneye, in a WhatsApp response to Daily Sun’s inquiry, explained that there were no supply issues, assuring that there was sufficent products for public consumption.
He, however, admitted that the recent tightness experienced in certain areas was due to a brief distribution issue in Lagos, which has since been resolved.
Some marketers at different fuel depots in Apapa, Lagos who confided in Daily Sun, confirmed that there was shortage in supply across the value chain, hence the return of fuel queues.
‘“We have been experiencing shortfall in supply since last week but this got to its peak at the weekend. The result is what we are experiencing now.
You know other marketers are not importing for now and NNPC which is the only importer seems to be overwhelmed.
“But we believe that by Friday,they should have sorted this out”, he explained.
A top official in one of the popular depots told Daily Sun that NNPC as the sole importer of fuel was counter-productive, saying that they stopped loading products since last week.
‘’We just received two vessels this morning and we have started loading. The supply has been epileptic. Not until the space is opened up, we will continue to experience this intermittent supply,”