Emma Arubi
20 February 2013, Sweetcrude, WARRI – ACUTE fuel scarcity that has crippled commercial activities for the past two days now pervades Delta state following the non-distribution of Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, by the Product and Pipeline Marketing Company, PPMC, a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company, NNPC, due to non-availability of the product.
Most filling stations in the commercial city of Warri and its environs have shut down business due to scarcity of the product while a few that has PMS now sells for between N120 and N150 per litre.
What is currently being loaded at the depot are AGO (diesel) and DPK (Kerosene) according to a source who craved anonymity.
The only depot supplying petrol that covers about 5 states of the Federation is Matrix Energy located at Ifiekporo community in Warri, Delta State and reliable sources disclosed that Matrix does not have enough products to effectively cover all these states at the same time, saying that the Warri Refinery and Petrochemical Company, WRPC, product vessels are already on their way to Warri.
According to the source, with the expected arrival of these WRPC oil vessels, the scarcity would be reduced to the barest minimum as from tomorrow, Thursday. As at now, tankers now go to other states to source for product.
Another source however claimed that the WRPC is carrying out a Turn Around Maintenance, TAM, on the PMS lines and that will continue to affect product distribution for some time before normalcy would return.
With the non-availability of PMS at the Warri depot, the usual heavy presence of indiscriminately parked fuel tankers with its nuisance value of causing unimaginable traffic jam at the ever busy NPA Expressway have disappeared and giving millions of residents of Effurun, Ekpan, Jeddo, Egbokodo, Ubeji, Ifie communities and surrounding areas a breathing space.
