The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, NMDPRA, has pinned the reason for the recent fuel shortages experienced in the country on logistics disruptions caused by rough seas and severe flooding in Lagos and other parts of the country.
Farouk Ahmed, CEO NMDPRA, confirmed this after his meeting with President Bola Tinubu on Tuesday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He said the flooding in Lagos State disrupted truck loading and movement and further increased the problem of fuel scarcity.
Ahmed, however, assured that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, and marketing companies are already addressing the issue, noting that the country has a 20-day fuel sufficiency.
“I briefed the President that we have like 20 days petroleum sufficiency, 12 days offshore and over 8 days sufficiency of petroleum onshore,” Ahmed said.
He further revealed that fuel products are being transported by ships to offshore depots across the nation to address the ongoing scarcity.
“Obviously offshore, there was a lot of soil and destabilization and it was very difficult to continue our STS, that is shipping operations in terms of ship-to-ship transfer because of safety. So the ship-to-ship transfer operations were suspended because of the volatile nature of the high sea at the time.
“So those two days of delays, because of safety reasons, created that gap and that gap manifested. On top of that as well, there were floods in Lagos that disrupted truck loading and truck movement because of the floods so the trucks were now more likely held back,” Ahmed said.
