THE Federal Government, yesterday, raised hope that the lingering fuel crisis and its attendant queues at filling stations will ultimately disappear next week.
Already, the government said that it has taken delivery of 2.1 billion litres for distribution nationwide to normalise the situation.
The government disclosed this at a meeting with the House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum investigating the circumstances surrounding the importation of adulterated fuel into the country.
While briefing the committee, the government explained that the situation came about as a result of the discovery of methanol in the PMS cargoes shipped to Nigeria under the subsisting commercial contract.
According to the government, the reason tests did not reveal methanol presence was because Nigeria’s specifications do not include methanol.
Specifically, it stated: “There is no way we could have known about the methanol presence. The only way we could have known about it is if our suppliers, in good faith, made the disclosure to us. In this particular instance, the discovery was made by our inspection agents, who noticed the emulsification at the filling stations and brought it to our attention. Subsequent investigation revealed that the four cargoes which are all from the same source also contained methanol-blended PMS.”
The government also stated that it then moved swiftly to trace all the affected products and quarantine the same, adding that it would cooperate with the Committee and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) to get to the root of the matter.
