By Paul Dada
Several parts of the Lagos metropolis were on Saturday morning hit by fuel scarcity.
P.M. News observed long queues at some fuel stations in Abule- Egba and Agege areas of Lagos as well as the Lagos- Ibadan Expressway. Most fuel stations were not selling petrol at all.
The situation was however, different at Ayobo where business was going on as usual in some fuel stations as there were no long queues.
P.M. News has yet to ascertain the reason for the current development. But Nigeria, an exporter of crude oil has through the years been bedeviled by fuel scarcity that happens from time to time.
The blame for this has been laid on the country’s lack of capacity to refine its crude oil.
The four state-owned refineries have been comatose through the years. However, the authorities promise that the rehabilitated Port Harcourt Refinery will commence operations in August of this year.
The Dangote Refinery owned by business mogul, Alhaji Aliko Dangote which was expected to be a game changer has so far not met the expectations of Nigerians.
The refinery is reported to have the capacity to process 650,000 barrels per day (BPD). It has a storage capacity of 4.5 billion litres, which is said to be sufficient enough to cover 20 days of Nigeria’s crude requirement. It is also able to nd store products equivalent to 15 days of Nigeria’s petrol consumption.
The refinery is expected to produce 53 million litres of petrol and 1.1 million tonnes daily.
But the organisation recently complained that International Oil Companies (IOC) operating in Nigeria were frustrating its efforts to get crude oil locally at a reasonable cost.
The Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), Farouk Ahmed, also recently said that Dangote Refinery was still in the pre-commissioning stage and had no license yet to begin full operations.
