Financial Energy Review
The Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) has said that it sympathizes with Nigerians over the current challenges they face in the purchase of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) known as petrol at the various filling stations nationwide.
However, MOMAN reiterated that a final resolution to these challenges will be the full deregulation of the petroleum
downstream sector to encourage liberalization of supply and encourage long-term investments in distribution assets.
“We urge the government to work towards this end goal” MOMAN said.
In a statement over the weekend the Association said that the queues being experienced by customers at the filling station are partly caused by exceptional high demand and bottlenecks in the fuel distribution chain.
“The major cause is the shortage and high (US Dollar) costs of daughter vessels for ferrying product from mother vessels to depots along the coast. Next is the inadequate number of trucks to meet the demand to deliver product from depots to filling stations nationwide” the Association explained.
According to them these high logistics and exchange rate costs continue to put pressure on prices at the pump. Adding that over the past three months, staff & management of MOMAN companies have worked diligently at depots and filling stations to relieve the stress faced by customers through the Christmas and New year period.
“Our members have again agreed to extend depot loading hours as well as keep strategically situated service stations open for longer hours to ease access to fuels for our customers.
MOMAN said that they will continue to use its best endeavors to ensure that product is sold at the pump at prices currently approved by the Regulatory Authorities, despite pressure on price by demand and costs in the immediate operating environment.
