By Charles Adingupu
The current fuel crisis triggered by President Bola Tinubu’s inaugural speech declaration that “fuel subsidy is gone,” will end in two or three days as the queues disappear around the country, Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari, has assured.
Kyari who gave this assurance on Thursday in an interview with Arise TV Morning Show, said that the queues in filling stations across the country were not precipitated by scarcity of petrol.
He said that the queues were rather the result of panic buying and there was no cause for alarm, as the queues will clear out between two to three days.
“First of all, I think we’re due to understand why the queues are there in the first instance. First is panic. Panic in the sense, not what we use to know where there is supply gap, because we don’t have a supply gap. Customers will see as soon as the indication was made that we could exit the subsidy regime people rushed to the fuel station ’let me buy the cheap fuel before they change the prices’.
“This is very typical, when people go into the fuel station they will buy, instead of buying 10,000 naira fuel, they will buy 20/30,000, of course that causes the pressure, it causes the delays in filling the tanks of the cars in the fuel station and naturally you will have queues coming up.
“The second reason is inventory management. Oil marketing companies will know that they have to go back. They know the current market realities, they know that if you just disperse it at that price, you can’t go back to the market. It’s very typical, they will have to have a sense of the price in the market for them to determine what happens. And that’s why many fuel stations, of course except the major marketers and NNPC will continue to sell, despite the very fact that we see the market realities. And ultimately, many fuel stations shut their fuel stations and even a number of pumps that they are using to dispense fuel to enable them be able to go back to the market.
“So, this is what really caused the queue and of course this will dissipate. I don’t think it’s going to last- probably 2, 3 days it will go because now the realities, the certainty around the pricing environment, and no one is in doubt around the pricing environment, therefore, this will go back.” He also said that due to the fact that there was supply of fuel, it will ensure the dissipation of the queues,” he said.
Kyari also disclosed that NNPC will open outlets outside Nigeria in order to encourage trade and end smuggling of petroleum products. He said that the expansion of the market will help to increase trade relations and reduce the amount of smuggling that goes on in the international borders.
