Vehicle owners in Abuja have begun to throng filling stations even as fuel stations have hiked the price of premium motor spirit (PMS), checks by Daily Trust have shown.
Daily Trust reports that the price of PMS, popularly known as petroleum has been jacked up to N640 in some private filling stations in the capital city, up from the N617 it was formerly sold.
Our reporter who visited some filling stations observed long queues, especially in NNPC retail stations who still maintain the old price.
The queue led to traffic gridlock along Olusegun Obasanjo Way at Wuse as the two NNPC stations along the route had long queues of cars waiting to fill their tanks.
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While Total Energies’ station at Wuse Zone 6 was closed when our reporter visited, the one at Wuse Zone 2 was opened with a fairly long vehicle queues but not as much as the ones at NNPC stations.
The Mobil Filling Station at Utako also had vehicles waiting to purchase fuel even though it was sold at N640 per litre while ETERNA fuel station in Jabi was closed.
The situation was the same on Airport Road with long queues in stations like BOVAS, SALBAS OIL, AA Rano and SHEMA.
At AA Rano located at Jabi, only one fuel pump was dispensing the product from the 30 fuel pumps in the station.
Few cars were allowed into the station with the main gate to the station locked to prevent other cars from coming in.
A taxi driver, Salisu Ibrahim, who spoke with our reporter in one of the stations said the queue started on Friday with some selling at N630 and others at N640.
“Since the Friday, some of the stations have closed up and the rumour we are hearing is that they want to increase the pump price to N700 per litre.”
Daily Trust reports that the Chief Executive Officer of NMDPRA, Farouk Ahmed, had last month said they received the assurance of the NNPC that there is available stock of petrol in the country.
Speaking after a meeting with all relevant stakeholders in the oil industry to ensure availability of fuel in the country, Ahmed however said independent marketers with licence to import the product complained of lack of access to the official price of dollars, thus, costing them more to import the product.
He added that they complained that the current pump price is not profitable for them and they can’t compete with the NNPC, which is importing the product at the official price of the dollar.
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