The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has disclosed that petrol allocation by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to Ibadan depot is grossly inadequate.
IPMAN Ibadan Depot Chairman, Mr. Raimi Tayo, while describing the development as unfortunate, said marketers have resorted to loading at Apapa private depots due to non-availability of the product in Ibadan.
He said that independent marketers hardly load up to 10 trucks daily, as against the usual 90 trucks.
The situation, he said, is causing scarcity, adding that the depot has not received adequate supply in the last one month.
Tayo said the depot has reduced its daily loadings to 400,000 litres from its previous six million litres per day.
He said the development has negatively affected independent marketers who are unable to break-even since the depot started facing the challenge.
He added that pipeline vandalism is a major challenge facing product supply to the depot and appealed to Federal government to salvage the situation.
“Our members are faced with serious challenges loading from private depots in Apapa in the last one month as petroleum products allocated to Ibadan depot is grossly inadequate.
“We are appealing to government, through the NNPC, to pump enough products to the depot so that marketers can remain in business.
“We also call on the government to outsource the pipeline surveillance to private firms if the security agencies entrusted with securing the pipeline network had compromised,” he said.
He said that sourcing of product from private depots was totally wrong and unprofitable when there were five depots in the south-west region, namely: Mosinmi, Ejigbo, Ibadan, Ore and Ilorin.
Tayo noted that pipeline vandalism and inadequate pumping of petroleum products from Mosinmi to Ibadan was also a challenge.
He said that the IPMAN surveillance team against pipeline vandalism from Mosinmi was being frustrated, thus causing the nation huge losses.
“It is our collective responsibility to check and bring pipeline criminals to book,” he added.