Nigerians are bracing up again for the problems of fuel scarcity amidst historical power failure issues and a list of the probable cause of the scarcity of PMS has been drawn.
Long queues at petrol stations are resurfacing across Nigeria, according to recent reports. It's believed that there's fuel scarcity in several regions of the nation and this is caused by these two factors:
1. Scarcity of Dollar:
Oil marketers are finding it difficult to source for dollars to finance importation of petroleum products. The headache is that the Central Bank of Nigeria cannot guarantee all the dollar demand to be used for importation by the marketers, hence most of them rely on allocations from NNPC which is currently the main importer of fuel.
2. NNPC’s Delay in Signing Crude Oil Swaps:
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC is delaying signing of crude oil swaps. Reports say the oil firm have been trying to sign additional long-term contracts to cover well beyond the 210,000 bpd of oil that was exchanged in the past.
Also, there are some 200,000 tonnes of petrol berthed offshore Nigeria, but this covers just over a week of consumption in Nigeria, while new March bookings have slowed to just over 100,000 tonnes, which is not close to the level required to service the country.