BY KUYINU FELIX
The end of fuel queues may not be in sight in Lagos and environs.
Information made available to Echonews by Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN disclosed that only one storage tank out of nine installed at the Ejigbo Depot is working.
IPMAN made this known through their Chairman in Ejigbo Satellite Depot, Alhaji Ayo Alanamu today appealing to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to rehabilitate all the moribund storage facilities within the depots which made up the western zone to enhance effective distribution of petroleum products as that would address the fuel distribution challenges encountered.
Alanamu said that only one out of nine storage tanks in Ejigbo Depot, is currently working; adding that this was not sufficient for petroleum distribution. He further noted that this had also contributed to the scarcity of Petrol and the long queues of trucks awaiting loading at the depot.
According to him, marketers hardly load 50 trucks from the depot due to the dilapidated state of the storage tanks there. “We were loading between 15 trucks and 17 trucks daily before it was repaired, began Alanamu. “That was not enough for marketers to distribute to their customers.
“We appeal to the Federal Government through the NNPC to revive all the damaged tanks so as to increase the fuel storage capacity to 200 trucks daily. Government should ensure effective repairs of all the dilapidated storage facilities within the western zone to beef-up storage and loading capacity to at least 1million trucks on daily basis. “This will address frequent fuel challenges in the country,’’ he said.
The IPMAN boss said that if depots had enough stocks, marketers would work 24-hours to ensure that the product gets to every nook and cranny of the states.
Alanamu appealed to the government to revive the depots so that they could operate to work 24-hours daily and facilitate effective service delivery to reduce queues within the depots.
He also appealed to government to allow marketers to import petrol and sell at the current prevailing market price. According to him, no marketer can import at N171 landing cost
per litre and sell at N145 at their stations.
