We have 1.5bn litres of petrol to last 30 days, says Reps

The House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Resources, Downstream and Midstream stated that Nigeria currently has in its storage facilities over 1.5 billion litres of petrol that can last for 30 days.

It called on the citizens to remain calm and stop panic buying.

The committee further said it was making moves to deal with hoarders and saboteurs.

According to the committee, from their findings, petrol products are available and have since arrived in the country, but the supply and distribution to marketers were frustrated by challenges of transport vessels that were supposed to take the products from offshore to onshore.

It further said that the logistics challenges have since been addressed, product distribution has started, and the queues would disappear in a matter of days, hence the need to avoid panic buying as the product was available.

Ikenga Ugochinyere and Odianosen Okojie, downstream and midstream-led committees, while addressing newsmen in Abuja yesterday, said, ”The purpose of this press briefing is to give an update on the scarcity of petrol products and what the committees are doing to ensure that the right things are done as the representatives of the people.

“It is so painful that Nigerians have been subjected to serious hardship and pains due to the scarcity of petroleum products in the past few days.

“This development has led us, as representatives of the people, to engage with the regulators of the relevant sectors with a view to finding out the cause(s) of this scarcity and providing solutions to same.

“We have, in the last few days, reached out to the stakeholders in the distribution value chain, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, NMDPRA, the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria, PETROAN, and the Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners, NARTO, and engaged extensively with them, with a view to ascertaining the cause of the resurgence of the fuel queues across the country.”