The crisis of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria may ground the supply of fuel in Nigeria thereby ushering in a round of scarcity and inflated prices.
Investigation by Punch reveals that most depots in Apapa, Lagos will run dry if the industrial strike action continues beyond Wednesday, 13th of July, 2016.
Following the commencement of the strike on Thursday, loading at Apapa depots, where many marketers get petroleum products to other states, has been reduced due to the absence of workers of the Petroleum Equalisation Fund Board.
The PEF personnel usually certify marketers’ trucks to enable them to get bridging funds for fuel being transported to distant parts of the country. It was gathered that marketers were only loading to Lagos and other South-West states that required no payment of bridging fund by the PEF.
The Federal Government had said it would meet with the leadership of PENGASSAN today (Monday) in a bid to resolve the problem.
A source, who is an official of an independent marketing company in Lagos, said, “Terminal owners can only load what is in their tanks, but they cannot receive any product now from vessels. If they finish what is in their tanks now and bring in any vessel, the Department of Petroleum Resources is not going to certify it for discharge. They do a lot of tests on any product that comes to Apapa.
“That is how it is going to affect the supply in Lagos if the strike lingers on. Depots in Apapa should finish their stock on or before Wednesday. I don’t see any depot that will still have stock after Wednesday in Apapa.”
The Chairman, Trade Union Congress, Rivers State chapter, Mr. Chika Onuegbu, said fuel distribution was the smallest bit of what would go wrong as a result of the PENGASSAN strike.
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