The President of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, Mr. Festus Osifo, has highlighted several factors contributing to the recurring fuel shortages and long queues at filling stations across Nigeria.
Speaking during the ongoing 2024 PENGASSAN Energy and Labour Summit in Abuja on Thursday, Osifo pointed to the outdated and fragile distribution networks within the downstream sector of the oil and gas industry as a primary cause of these persistent issues.
“The distribution chain is weak in the downstream sector of the oil and gas industry. That is why today, you see queues in most of the stations. The problem may be solved today, but it will resurface tomorrow,” Osifo stated. He further emphasized that the existing distribution infrastructure is inadequate to meet the demands of Nigeria’s large and growing population. “There is no country in the world as big as Nigeria, with our population, that relies on a single point of product importation and uses trucks to distribute across the nation,” he added.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria, Osifo also attributed the scarcity of fuel in many filling stations to poor road conditions and flooding, which disrupt the supply chain.
He urged the government to initiate immediate reforms to tackle these challenges and strengthen the country’s value chain, ensuring a more reliable and efficient fuel distribution system.
Osifo warned that without these improvements, Nigeria would continue to experience fuel shortages.
He also highlighted other issues in the sector, including the high cost of local production, which he said is 15 to 20 percent higher than in other regions of the world.
He explained that this is partly due to the security burden placed on oil and gas companies.
To address this, Osifo called on the government to assume responsibility for security in the industry, which would help lower production costs.
He also stressed the need for stricter laws and harsher penalties to combat oil theft, advocating for measures that would discourage misconduct and promote integrity within the sector.
