The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has urged Nigerians to disregard trending social media reports of an impending fuel scarcity due to purported refusal by some oil marketers to lift products from depots.
The social media message, which has been trending all day reads: “Good day all. For your information, it is likely there will be fuel (Petrol) crisis from tomorrow. Dealers are not lifting petrol because the landing cost is much higher than the retail price. For instance, a litre of petrol is now 145.5naira at Mosimi Depot.
“It will be unwise economically for anyone to buy petrol at 145.5 and sell for 145naira. Consequently, no petrol dealer is lifting fuel now. Queue has started surfacing at some few petrol stations that have fuel in Lagos.
It is advisable you find a station (that has fuel) and fill your tank asap as nobody knows when the problem will be resolved. Have a wonderful evening.
But the NNPC in a release by its Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Ndu Ughamadu, explained that the message was fabricated by mischief makers to create undue panic in the prevailing sanity in the fuel supply and distribution matrix across the country.
The corporation insists that it has over 1billion litres of petrol in stock while imports of 48 vessels of 50million litres each have been committed for the month of April 2019 alone.
It added that there was no need for panic buying or hoarding of petroleum products in anticipation of scarcity.
