The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has assured the public of adequate supply of petrol around the country within the week.
Mr Muhammed Usman, Abuja Zonal Controller of the DPR, said this during an inspection and enforcement in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on Tuesday.
Usman said that following the directive of the Federal Government, eight million litres (300 trucks) of petrol was released on Tuesday to Abuja.
He explained that during the meeting between the Federal Government and the stakeholders on June 5 in Abuja, there was an agreement that the product should be released by marketers.
According to Usman, the available products at the moment are intervention products; the main supply will begin before the weekend.
He said the supply would take care of Abuja motorists and expressed the hope that the long queues currently experienced would disappear before the weekend.
Usman said almost all the filing stations in the FCT were selling fuel on Tuesday and “we hope that they would get enough fuel to sell in the subsequent days”.
“So, people should not panic about long queue because it will go away. People should stop buying from illegal hawkers because they cannot spend more than 15 minutes on the queue.”
Usman emphasised that the inspection was not to punish any marketer but to enable the DPR’s monitoring teams to ensure that the situation returned to normal.
According to him, DPR is trying to see that no filing station under-dispense, sell above N87 per litre and “if we see anyone, we make sure that the proper adjustment is done”.
He explained that the agency would not close any erring filing station as such action at this time would amount to inflicting more pains on public.
“We have the record of those who are selling above the approved price of N87 per litre; when things normalise from next week, we will start dealing with them.
“Now, the DPR is to ensure that people can get this PMS as it was before and now we have started seeing the effect,” he said.
Mr Kingsley Iyegbu, a dealer at the Mobil Filing Station, Utako, Abuja, told newsmen that he had over 30,000 litres of PMS underground, adding that another truck was on its way.
Iyegbu assured that the station would continue to sell as long as the product was available and expressed optimism that queues would disappear before the weekend.
Mr Yakubu Umar, a motorist at Eterna Filing Station, Utako said he bought petrol within 30 minutes on the queue.
Umar commended the situation and urged the government and the marketers to ensure that the current crisis did not re- occur in future.
NAN
