Fuel Shortage In The Offing

Information available to the Crusading Guide newspaper indicates that a shortage of petroleum products is about to rock the country from the end of this week. This is as a result of the Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) purported refusal to lift fuel from the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR).

Apparently, the OMCs have gotten wind that there will be a downward adjustment of the price of fuel products and in order to make more profit, they are waiting for this downward review before they lift the fuel products. TOR’s Public Affairs Manager, Mrs. Aba Lokko when contacted, said the refinery has large stocks of all kinds of petroleum products as far as TOR is concerned”, she underscored. Mrs. Lokko confirmed the report that the OMCs are not lifting the fuel products from the refinery and indicated this could have the potential of causing an artificial fuel shortage on the market.

This paper can confirm that over the weekend none of the OMCs lifted any product from TOR and all through last week, the amount of fuel lifted from the refinery had been very low. On the other hand, the OMCs lift very high volumes of fuel products from TOR anytime there was going to be an upward review of the price of fuel products.

When contacted, the National Petroleum Authority was rather tight-lipped on the issue. Alhaji Shaibu Alhassan of the NPA’s Public Affairs Department who spoke to The Crusading Guide newspaper said he would neither confirm nor deny that the price of fuel products was about to be reviewed soon.