The Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), Farouk Ahmed, has confirmed that the recent fuel shortages experienced in the country were due to logistics disruptions caused by severe flooding in Lagos and other parts of the country.
Ahmed disclosed this to State House Correspondents after meeting with President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
According to him, flooding in Lagos State disrupted truck loading and movement.
He said this further increased the problem of insufficiency of petrol while assuring that these issues were being addressed through coordinated efforts between Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and marketing companies.
“And obviously offshore, there were a lot of soil and there were destabilisation and it was very difficult to continue our shipping operations because of safety, the safe shift transfer was suspended because of the volatile nature of the high sea at the time. So, that two days of delays created that gap and on top of that, elsewhere there were flooding in Lagos and that disrupted truck loading and truck movement because of the floods,“ Ahmed said.
While reiterating government’s commitment to supporting local industries and ensuring the quality of petroleum products, he added that there is a 20-day sufficiency of petroleum products, with 12 days offshore and 8 days onshore.
“I briefed the President that we have like 20 days sufficiency – 12 days offshore and over 8 days sufficiency of onshore, but what is important is to translate the offshore to onshore and that is why I mentioned to you earlier that the movement of shipping to other parts of the country will fast-track the onshore availability and once we have the stock in onshore spread across the country, then you see a lot of comfort coming in,” Ahmed added.
He further noted that floods in parts of Niger and Edo states with increased road blockages hinder the transportation of petroleum products.
