By Adewale Sanyaolu
The acute shortage of petrol, which began at the weekend, yesterday started disappearing from many filling stations in Lagos as more stations were seen dispensing products to motorists.
The improvement in supply has led to reduction of queues in retail outlets while the traffic situation caused by the scarcity had equally thinned out.
Most of the retail outlets visited by Daily Sun in Lagos yesterday were dispensing fuel with fewer number of motorists on queue, an indication that supply had improved.
The situation revealed there was sufficient fuel in most parts of Lagos, including Agege Motor Road, Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway, domestic airport, Apapa-Oshodi Expressway and Iju Road. Some of the filling stations that had stock also sold at the approved pump price of N86 and N86.50k respectively. Though some hawkers were seen on Airport Road making last minute frantic efforts to dispose of their remaining petrol, which they had hoarded prior to yesterday.
The latest development in supply of petrol may not be unconnected with the intervention of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to begin delivery of 45 million litres of petrol everyday for distribution across the country. It explained that on a daily basis, one cargo of petrol will be delivered to it, suggesting that the corporation could as well cover the entire petrol need of the country, which is about 40 million litres daily.
Also, the huge number of tankers dotting the entire stretch of the service lane from Cele Bus-stop to Apapa on the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway was another indication on NNPC’s efforts to wet the country with petrol.
Only recent NNPC equally directed the full activation of an Intra-Ministerial Joint Monitoring Task Force comprising officials of Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) and the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC), to ensure compliance to laid down rules and regulations governing the supply and distribution of petroleum products.
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