Logistics and Forex Bane of Fuel Scarcity as Depot Owners Pay $70,000 Against $30,000 Per Day for Vessels

……..by Ben Ndubuwa……
There are strong indications that the current scarcity of Premium Motor Spirit otherwise known as Petrol is attributable to logistics challenges and the increasing exchange rate of the dollar to naira.

Financial Energy Review learnt that the logistics challenges include in the cost of paying in dollars to transport the product from the mother vessels usind daughter vessels to the various Depots and then trucking the product from the depots to the filling stations.

Marketers have complained that foreign exchange impact on their business is quite high. According to them to hire a daughter vessels before now was about $25,000 to $35,000 per day (N380 to a dallas) but now the exchange rate (N700 to N800 to a dollar) has gone high and they are paying over $70,000 to hire the vessel per day. “Somebody has to pay for this increase” marketers said

Clement Isong the Executive Secretary of Major Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) said they buy directly from NNPC but the challenge is trucking from the depot to the filling stations as there are so much queue and the product get exhausted so fast. And for their trucks going up North it takes up to a week for such trucks to discharge and return back to depot

Isong said that the association had been holding a daily logistic emergency meeting with the downstream management of NNPCL on how to improve the supply of petrol.

According to him, the collaboration with NNPCL will enhance the distribution of petroleum products in the country.