The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPR) in a statement on Tuesday revealed that the government has discovered methanol quantity above the standard specification in a limited quantity of petrol that was already in distribution.
“Methanol is a regular additive in petrol and is usually blended to acceptable quantity,” the CEO of NMDPR Mr Farouk Ahmed said in a press briefing in Abuja on Tuesday.
This is said to be the cause of the fuel scarcity that saw long queues building from Monday into Tuesday at filling stations across the nation’s capital Abuja as well as Lagos State.
Mr Farouk Ahmed assured Nigerians that the adulterated petrol had been successfully identified and that the process of isolating it was already ongoing.
“To ensure vehicular and equipment safety, the limited quantity of the impacted product has been isolated from the market, including those loaded in trucks.”
Ahmed said that all of the adulterated petrol was from a sole supplier, promising that appropriate actions would be taken by the NNPC.
Warning against panic buying and re-assuring Nigerians of sufficient supply of fuel, Ahmed said;
“Our technical team, in conjunction with NNPC and other industry stakeholders will continue to monitor and ensure quality products are adequately supplied and distributed nationwide. So there is no need to panic.”
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“The NNPC Limited and all marketing companies have been directed to sustain sufficient distribution of petrol products in all retail outlets nationwide to avoid any scarcity.”
“Meanwhile, the NNPC has intensified efforts at increasing the supply of petroleum products in the market in order to bridge any unforeseen supply gap.”
The issue of fuel scarcity has become a recurrent situation since the Buhari led administration hinted at subsidy removal by June of 2022. However, pressure from Nigerians as well as Labour Unions saw the government shift the implementation of subsidy removal to 18 months, which technically hands over the decision to the next government. Fuel marketers had been hoarding the commodity ahead of subsidy removal in order to sell at an inflated rate.
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