Oil prices rose by more than $1 a barrel on Wednesday after fuel queues that resurfaced in Lagos and its environs on Tuesday reduced yesterday.
Brent crude futures rose to $95 a barrel as of 5:27PM on Wednesday.
Long queues at filling stations resurfaced in Lagos and its environs on Tuesday, heralding fears of a fresh round of petrol scarcity in the country.
The new development follows findings by The PUNCH that petrol supply had dropped by 93 per cent nationwide since the pronouncement of an end to fuel subsidies by President Bola Tinubu on May 29.
The PUNCH patrol team noticed that many stations in Lagos shut their gates to customers, while the few that had products for sale witnessed conspicuously long queues, especially along the Oshodi-Ibadan Expressway.
Although the queues had dropped by Wednesday, filling stations cited along the expressway; such as Mobil, TotalEnergies, Oando were under lock and key on Tuesday.
The premises of North West and NNPCL Retail with products saw a large turnout of vehicles and customers carrying kegs.
Although The PUNCH could not immediately determine the reason for the queues, however, statistics gathered from a report by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, revealed that supply had dropped drastically after May.
Petrol supply by the NNPCL has dropped from 68,353,981 litres before the removal of petrol subsidy to 4,544,002 litres in August.
Statistics on the ‘Daily Truck Out’ report obtained from the NMDPRA revealed that supply was around 68,353,981 litres per day as of June 30.
Before the removal of petrol subsidy, the Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL, Mele Kyari, said that the daily consumption was around 66 million litres.
However, checks by The PUNCH on NMDPRA’s latest report for August 20, showed that supplies by the NNPCL had dropped 4, 544,002 litres as of August 20.
Petrol subsidies had gulped around N12tn before it was officially in May.
The PUNCH had earlier reported how NNPCL cut down petrol importation in anticipation that the 650,000 barrels per day Dangote refinery would commence pushing petrol into the Nigerian market in August.
However, the refinery had yet to begin refining owing to both internal (management’s indecision) and external factors (high forex, which had impacted on importation of inputs for the facility).
Despite the removal of subsidies, oil marketers had yet to begin the importation of petroleum products due to forex volatility in the country.
The dollar jumped from around N400/$1 before May 29 to N779/$1 at the parallel market, while the Central Bank of Nigeria sold at N768/$1 as of Tuesday.
The high forex rate and oil marketers’ inability to import products eventually pushed the responsibility of meeting local consumption demand back on the NNPCL.
Meanwhile, the Group Executive Director of Dangote Group, Devakumar Edwin, last week said the refinery would commence refining with diesel and jet A fuel in October, and petrol in November.
