There will be no scarcity of fuel- DPR tells Nigerians

The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) haa said there will be no scarcity of the petrol despite the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic.

The department said the zone currently had 107m litres of PMS in eight of its depots in Port Harcourt and was expecting more product in a few days.

The Port Harcourt zonal Head of Downstream, Anthony Oyom, who was accompanied by Mohammed Akwa, an engineer in charge of the zone’s projects, depots and jetties, said this while monitoring the compliance of depots and filling stations to the new price of PMS in Rivers state today March 24th.

“We went out to do surveillance to all the depots within this axis and also some filling stations to confirm that the depots are selling at the new depot price and also the retail outlets are selling at the new pump price that the minister gave the directive on March 18, 2020. We checked six depots and in all of them we saw that they had enough products. Currently we have over 100m liters of stock in Port Harcourt. We are expecting millions of litres in a few days. At the end of this week, we should have at least 150 million liters stored in Port Harcourt.

We have enough fuel for Rivers State and the immediate environment. Also, retail outlets are complying with the new pump directive. There is absolutely no reason for anybody to engage in panic buying. We know that the Coronavirus is real, it has entered Nigeria. About 42 cases confirmed now and some companies have said we should work from home. People will be at home and they will need more fuel. What we have can last us for about a month even if we don’t import again. But we are still expecting some vessels which we issued clearance on. We have enough stock. Filling stations are complying with the new directive. So. There is no reason to panic” he said