An acute shortage in the supply of diesel and kerosene has hit filling stations nationwide, a situation which may fuel inflation on foods and other consumables if not averted quickly.

Daily Trust report that imports of diesel and kerosene have been suffering hitches due to dollar scarcity, and resumption of production by local refineries is yet to bring respite, marketers say.

It report that prices of the products, which have been deregulated, have continued to shoot up.

In Abuja, most marketers’ outlets visited complained of erratic supplies and difficulty in accessing the product from designated depots.

At A.Y.M Shafa, located along airport road, an attendant said the price of diesel was increased last week from N255 to N260 per litre while the price of kerosene hovered around N255.
In Lagos, the few independent filling stations that have diesel sold at N265 to N280 per litre. Stations also displayed price tags for the product without availability of same.

An official of Forte Oil Plc told our correspondent that his company had stock of diesel when it was sold for N180 per litre while the company didn’t receive supply of kerosene in the last one year.

Spokesman of Nipco Plc, Taofeek Lawal, also said his company has not had stock of kerosene for over a year.

There was a long queue at the NNPC mega stations in Falomo in Lagos for kerosene but with little hope of getting the product by buyers.

In Kano, only few independent filling stations had kerosene. Those who had stock sold it for N250 per litre.

Usman Abdu, a fuel pump attendant with one of the filling stations, said the product’s price had dropped from N400 per litre. However, few other stations were selling at N280 to N295 per litre.

It found that a litre of diesel in Kano was sold at N280 to N300 respectively depending on the filling station’s proximity to the state capital.

Meanwhile, the Kano wing of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) yesterday stated that the scarcity of petrol presently encountered in the state was as a result of the sudden increase in price by the Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association (DAPMAN) which forced members of IPMAN to suspend supply.

Speaking to newsmen in Kano, chairman of the state’s wing of the association, Alhaji Bashir Ahmad Danmalam, stated that the depot price had been jerked up to about N140, and the transportation fare he said, has also been jerked up to about N13 per litre, including other logistics, raising the cost of a litre to about N155.

The recent statistics released by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics showed that food prices and other consumables increased drastically due to increase in fuel energy.

The cost of food in Nigeria increased 17.40 percent in December of 2016 over the same month in the previous year.

Most trucks used to transport foods and other consumables in the country are diesel powered and they transport about 95 percent of the goods due to the absence of rail system. In most cases the transporters or wholesalers factor in the cost of fuel to the goods they transport.
Daily Trust