Petroleum marketers have raised serious concerns over the shutdown of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) portal, which is crucial for purchasing Premium Motor Spirit (petrol). This closure, announced by Chinedu Ukadike, spokesperson for the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, has left dealers unable to apply for petrol, potentially leading to nationwide fuel scarcity.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Ukadike revealed that there are over 2,000 pending tickets for the purchase of 45,000 liters of petrol each. He emphasized that this backlog amounts to a staggering estimate of 90 million liters of petrol currently inaccessible to marketers.
“I can’t confirm the price now because the portal is still shut down”.
He noted that the cost of a 45,000-litre truckload is approximately N39.5 million, which translates to around N79 billion when considering the total pending tickets.
“We have more than 2,000 tickets for 45,000 liters (of petrol). That is 45,000 multiplied by 2,000, you can now know the number of million liters it will be. This is just an estimate, you know I don’t work with NNPCL and I don’t know what is on their system,” Ukadike stated.
In response to these developments, NNPCL spokesperson Olufemi Soneye acknowledged the significant backlog the company faces. He explained that the portal’s closure was a necessary measure to avoid holding marketers’ funds for extended periods. While Soneye assured that the portal would reopen soon, he did not provide a specific timeline for when this would occur.
“We have a significant backlog to address. The closure is intended to prevent us from holding marketers’ funds for an extended period,” Soneye had explained.
“It will be reopened once the backlog has been sufficiently reduced. We are working to address it as soon as possible,” he stated.
This situation arises amidst ongoing challenges for Nigerians grappling with high energy costs. In September 2024, NNPCL announced another price hike for petrol, following the lifting of the product from Dangote Refinery. Currently, petrol prices range between N950 and N1,100 per liter across the country.
