Nigeria’s downstream petroleum sector is currently under siege from powerful oil cartels taking advantage of a temporary disruption in the supply of petrol and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (cooking gas) to the Nigerian market to inflate prices, findings have revealed.
Many marketers, including filling stations and tank farm owners, checks revealed, have created artificial scarcity in an attempt to make huge profit from the limited products supplied into the market by ÆŠangote Refinery, which has been battling to repair some faulty parts of the plant that have prevented it from attaining full production capacity.
There has been a massive shortfall in the volume of refined petroleum products that enters the Nigerian market since October after petroleum workers under the umbrella body of National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) embarked on two major industrial actions to protest against the alleged refusal of Ɗangote Refinery’s management to allow the plant’s workers unionize.
While it lasted, the first industrial action, apart from temporarily disrupting commercial activities at the refinery, led to fuel scarcity in some parts of the country. Order was later restored after the intervention of the Federal Government.
