The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR)
on Thursday closed down the depots of Total
Nigeria Plc, Dee Jones Limited and Eterna Oil
Plc in Ibafon area of Lagos for hoarding over
46 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit
(PMS), otherwise called petrol. The agency has also debunked the claims by
marketers that there was scarcity of petrol and
blamed the tight supply situation on depot
owners, who hoard products, thus causing panic
buying. While Total and Eterna Oil were hoarding
13.6 million litres each, when DPR’s
surveillance monitoring team visited the depot
of Dee Jones which was hoarding about 19.5
million litres. However, the General Manager of Dee Jones, Mr.
Willy Ikeora, denied that the company was
hoarding the product in its depot, stressing
that they were loading but not as fast as
expected by DPR. The regulatory authority also queried Ascon
Oil and ordered the management of the
company to appear at the agency’s head office
by 3pm yesterday and explain why the company
should not be sanctioned for its slow pace of
loading tankers, despite the availability of eight million litres in its depot. Integrated Oil and Gas Limited was also
directed to speed up the loading process as the
company had up to 10.2 million litres of
petrol when the agency’s surveillance monitoring
team paid an unscheduled visit to the facility.
An official of Integrated Oil, who spoke to THISDAY, however stated that they were
loading the product slowly so as not to
exhaust the available stock as the company was
not given import allocation for the fourth
quarter 2015 by the Petroleum Products
Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA). “In the third quarter 2015, we were given
allocation to import 60,000 metric tonnes but
we imported 62,000 metric tonnes. It means
that our performance was very satisfactory. But
can you imagine that despite our performance,
a big company like us was not given any allocation in the fourth quarter? If we don’t
import product, how will we remain in business
and pay salaries? Do they want us to load out
the remaining product quickly and close down
our depot? That is the situation,” said the
official. Addressing journalists during the inspection,
the Director of DPR, Mr. Mordecai Danteni
Baba Ladan, stated that the sealed depots
would pay a fine of N2 million each, while the
others should explain why they were loading at
very slow pace. “This exercise was embarked upon because of
the impression the general public has about
product supply and distribution. We have been
inundated with a lot of enquiries on the right
situation and we have been telling the public
that the people should not engage in panic buying because records at our disposal indicate
that we have enough of this product. As at
yesterday nationwide, we had in stock almost
over 300 million litres. In the Lagos storage
area, we have over 220 million litres,” Ladan
said. “So today, we have decided to come and see
things for ourselves and as you can see, we
have visited about four different depots now
and these products are really in stock. Where
we are now, you can see that they have 13
million litres in storage but they are not loading. Why? So, we have given the
management of the depot up till 3pm today
(Thursday) to come and proffer the reasons why
liftings are not taking place and where
liftings are taking place, why we have trickles
of liftings,” Ladan added.
sunnewsonline.com/new/dpr-seals-totals-depot-others-for-hoarding-46m-litres-of-petrol/

Ok.. They have started looking for avenues to use as am excuse to increase the petrol price as December is at hand.

New sheriff in town!!!! Not business as usual for corporate bodies. Every regulatory body seems to have woken up their tasks. Now watch as Nigeria grows as the system get purged of institutional corruption over the next 4-6 years.

God bless Nigeria

Seal them all, seize the product and slam them a fine if possible. That's how we roll

When will u guys come down to Idiroko border side. The length of atrocities committed by dis people selling PMS here is immeasurable