DPR warns marketers to stop reserving petrol for ‘special customers’

FILE: DPR official seals a petrol station in Akwa Ibom

The Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, has on Wednesday warned markers to stop reserving commodity for some special customers, to avoid sanction.

Abuja Zonal Operations Controller, Mr. Abba Misau, said this at the commencement of monitoring of filling stations in Abuja.

He said the monitoring of filling stations would be on a daily basis, with the aim of ensuring that petrol stations that get products, disburse it to motorists.

He added that the DPR would no longer allow hoarding of fuel by marketers under the guise of keeping deadstock.

These efforts, he said aimed at ensuring that queues disappeared in the various filling stations in Abuja.

He said, “Henceforth, no petrol station should reserve fuel for special customers or under whatever guise. Any stations found doing that would be sanctioned accordingly.

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“Also, we discovered that petrol stations are keeping deadstock above the regulatory limit. Henceforth, any station found with petrol in their tanks above the regulatory limit, which is around 1,000 litres, the station would be forced to sell the product to motorist and would be sanctioned afterwards.”

In some of the petrol stations visited, the operators complained of lack of product, with most of them saying they only get 33,000 litres of the commodity in two days.

At the NNPC mega station in Gwarinpa, the station manager, Mr. Babangida Hassan, said the station had not received any product today, but is however, hopeful of receiving at least a truckload of petrol by tomorrow.

At the Conoil petrol station, Kado, Abuja, the station manager, Mr. Henry Odeh, said they received 33,000 litres of the commodity by 12:40 am on Tuesday and had finished discharging the product within three hours.

He said the station did not receive additional supply Tuesday, and expressed hope that it would be able to obtain the product in the coming days.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that long queues were still persistent in almost all the filling stations selling the products.

Motorists spend average of two hours to get the product.