The President of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) Mr Festus Osifo, has said that weak and outdated distribution chains as a reason for the persistent petrol queues across Nigeria.
Speaking at the ongoing 2024 PENGASSAN Energy and Labour Summit in Abuja on Thursday, Osifo said: “The distribution chain is weak in the downstream sector of the oil and gas industry. That is why today, you see queues in most of the stations. The problem may be solved today, but it will resurface tomorrow.
“Nigeria’s distribution chain is outdated and insufficient to meet the demands of its large population. There is no country in the world as big as Nigeria, with our population, that relies on a single point of product importation and uses trucks to distribute across the nation.”
Osifo also attributed insufficient supply of fuel across the filling stations in the country to bad roads and flooding, leading to scarcity.
He therefore called for urgent reforms to address the challenge. The reforms, according to him, will require the government to develop and strengthen the country’s value chain to ensure a more efficient and reliable distribution system.
Osifo noted that without the improvements, the country would continue to face recurring fuel shortages.
He said that other challenges in the sector included the high cost of local production, which according to him, is 15 per cent to 20 per cent higher than in other parts of the world.
The report by Punch quoted Osifo as saying that the high production cost is partly due to the burden of security in the oil and gas companies and urged the Nigerian government to take over the security responsibilities from investors, to significantly reduce production costs and strengthen laws and sanctions against those involved in oil theft in Nigeria.
GIK/APA