The shortage of Premium Motor Spirit, sometimes known as fuel, in sections of Lagos and the South-Western states may last until the end of September, and it may extend to other areas if not solved urgently.
It was learned on Thursday that the scenario might last till the end of the month since the System 2B pipeline in front of Good Luck Estate in Idimu, Alimosho Local Council Development Area of Lagos, will be ready for usage by the end of September. Oil marketers blamed the current gasoline lines in several sections of Lagos and certain states in the South-West on the disruptive actions of vandals.
They explained that the shutdown of the System 2B pipeline, which supplies large volumes of products to the region, had impacted negatively in the flow of PMS in Lagos and neighbouring states. “
From our end, the issue has been with the pipeline vandalism which we raised an alarm over since July. Satellite depot has not loaded any product in the last three weeks, and whenever there is a problem here, it is going to affect Lagos and the whole of South-West,” the Chairman, Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Satellite Depot, Akin Akinrinade. Akinrinade had further explained, “Although I don’t know what has been happening in other depots, from what we gathered yesterday, even NNPC Retail has been operating skeletal product dispatching.
The NNPC Retail loaded just three to four trucks to Ikoyi on Monday. No product was dispatched to other places. I don’t know about other depots.” Garba-Deen Muhammad, Chief Corporate Communications Officer of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, announced on Thursday that the vandalized pipeline was being repaired.
He claimed that the facility will be completed by the end of September, implying that the supply disruptions caused by the pipeline stoppage might last until the end of the month. The NNPCL representative acknowledged that there were problems with the pipeline, but said, “the company is in the process of restoring it, and we are hoping that it will be okay by the end of September.”
“Right now its being worked on and hopefully it should be back and restored for proper use by the end of September. So that is the position right now, by the end of September the pipeline should be back on stream.”
