•Marketers suspend gasoline loading, blaming vandals for the interruption

•As a result of import difficulties, more gas outlets are closing.

Long lines for Premium Motor Spirit, sometimes known as fuel, are resurfacing at filling stations in Lagos and Ogun states, as well as a few other South-Western states.

Although no lineups were witnessed in Abuja or other Northern states, The TalkTalk Nigeria learned that Lagos depots were gradually running out of petrol.

Queues were seen at numerous stations, particularly on the Oshodi-Ojodu Berger road and some sections of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, as vehicles waiting to buy petrol stretched into the road, delaying progress on the service lane.

The longest line was at the North-West filling station, which dispensed petrol at N568/litre. Others with shorter lines were Eterna (N568/litre), NNPCL (N568/litre), TotalEnergies (N570/litre), and Mobil (N570/litre).

Conoil, Enyo, and Oando at Berger in Lagos were unable to dispense any product.

While some TotalEnergies stations were visible distributing, the Berger axis branch of the station was shut.

Others, including Worldoil, Fatgbems, and Quest in Ogun State, have closed their doors.

Akin Akinrinade, Chairman, Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Satellite Depot, told The PUNCH that the depot had not loaded items in the previous three weeks.

According to him, even the NNPCL Retail depot is now carrying out skeletal product dispatching.

"From our end, the problem has been pipeline vandalism, which we have been reporting since July." Satellite depot has not loaded any merchandise in the last three weeks, and any problem here will affect Lagos and the entire South-West.

"Although I'm not sure what's going on in other depots, from what we heard yesterday, even NNPC Retail has been operating on skeleton product dispatching." On Monday, the NNPC Retail only loaded three to four trucks towards Ikoyi. There was no goods sent to other locations. "I'm not sure about other depots," he replied.

The NNPCL Retail network consists of 21 depots spread around the country, with nine in the north and 12 in the south. The PUNCH reported in December that the corporation had abandoned the depots owing to pipeline vandalism and was now relying on private depots to ship items.

NNPCL has recently been working to have the pipes in working order. One of these attempts was the Satellite depots in Lagos, which reopened last year but were vandalized again in July.

Managers of the Ejigbo Satellite Depot had raised concerns about the ongoing actions of pipeline vandals on the System 2B pipeline in front of Good Luck Estate in Idimu, Alimosho Local Council Development Area of Lagos.

"IPMAN Satellite Depot are constrained with heavy heart to announce the vandalism of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited pipeline at Idimu in Alimosho LCDA of Lagos State, in front of Good Luck Estate," Akinrinade said at the time.

"This continuous vandalism is a setback to IPMAN and NNPCL's efforts to ensure uninterrupted petrol supply to Lagos and the entire South-West region of Nigeria."

According to the PUNCH, several depot owners have been unable to import supplies due to soaring foreign exchange rates.

According to sources close to the situation, numerous filling stations have closed their doors since customers cannot afford to buy supplies at the depots due to excessive pricing.

"Station costs are being reduced because most do not have enough money to purchase products to distribute to their outlets." That is why those with multiple stations have had to close some of them," one of the individuals told The PUNCH.

Another anonymous source told The PUNCH, "the economy is tough right now, and marketers have been unable to import products." Emadeb has collaborated with other marketers to bring in approximately 27 million litres.

"However, who else have you heard has brought in the product since then?" We are again back in the age of NNPCL being the single importer, and they will continue to influence market prices."

According to a senior member of Nigeria's Major Oil Marketers Association, demand now outweighs supply.

"NNPCL has decreased importation." And the goal was for private individuals to supplement what NNPCL brought in. However, marketers are not importing. As a result, NNPCL remains the sole importer," he explained.

When called to comment on the matter, NNPCL spokeswoman Garba-Deen Muhammad stated that he was communicating with an executive of an oil corporation who was familiar with the situation.

He promised to answer, and our correspondent kept contacting him for updates, but the oil company had not responded as of the time of posting this article.

In the meantime, Muhammad claimed in June that the corporation will reduce its gasoline imports in August after the Dangote Refinery began producing refined petroleum products in late July or early August. NNPCL has a 20% ownership in the Dangote Refinery.