Oil marketers have decided to begin blending the over 100 million litres of adulterated Premium Motor Spirit, also known as petrol, that was imported into Nigeria over two weeks ago.
On Tuesday, it was learned that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited had yet to recall all of the contaminated PMS, as the commodity had been occupying spaces in filling station tanks.
As a result, marketers said the situation made it difficult for filling stations to take delivery of new products to sell to their customers, worsening the scarcity of petrol and resulting in massive queues in Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Niger, Nasarawa, and other states.
In an interview, Chief Ukadike Chinedu, the Nations Public Relations Officer for the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, stated that some retailers in Lagos had begun blending adulterated PMS with clean fuel.
When asked if the NNPC had recalled all of the contaminated PMS that had been reported in some quarters on Tuesday, Ukadike responded, “That is not true.”
“I also want to tell you that in some of our members’ filling stations, some of which I know in Port Harcourt, Ichie and Obigbo in Rivers State, as well as a few in Abuja, I have their names and numbers, the (adulterated) products are still in their tanks now,” he added.
“And they have been running helter-skelter to see whether they will be able to get fresh products to blend the ones in their tanks and push all of it out to the public.
“This is because we got information that some of our members who are in Lagos are bringing in fresh products to blend with the contaminated ones and neutralise the sulphur and methanol.”
Ukadike, however, noted that many filling stations had yet to get new supplies that were enough to blend the adulterated products in their tanks.
“But unfortunately up till now they (filling stations) have not got new supplies and that is one of the basic reasons for the scarcity you see here and there across the country,” he stated.
On whether marketers have the capacity or equipment to blend the adulterated products with clean fuel, Ukadike replied that they were ready to try it, since the NNPC had yet to recall the products.
He said, “The NNPC has a blending plant which could have done this thing clinically and make it more appropriate. But we have waited for weeks now and nothing has been done.
“You know, we don’t have testing machines, so marketers just want to do this permutation, considering the huge amount spent on the purchase of the products and in order to help to address petrol scarcity.”
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