PENGASSAN seeks reorientation of value chain to prevent fuel scarcity

The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has reiterated the need for the Federal Government to develop and strengthen the country’s value chain to ensure a more efficient and reliable distribution system of Petroleum products, warning that without these improvements, the country would continue to face recurring fuel shortages.
President of PENGASSAN, Festus Osifo, speaking on the persistent fuel crisis said the fuel queues across the country was due to a weak distribution chain within the downstream sector of the oil and gas industry.
Osifo said that Nigeria’s distribution chain using trucks on the nation’s bad roads is outdated and insufficient to meet the demands of its large population.
The PENGASSAN president, who doubles as the President of Trade Union Congress (TUC) noted that the method is vulnerable to disruptions, including bad roads and flooding, which can lead to fuel scarcity.
He reasoned that the high cost of production in Nigeria, which is 15 to 20 percent higher than in other parts of the world, is partly due to the burden of security on oil and gas companies.
Osifo charged the government to take over security responsibilities from investors, which would significantly reduce production costs.
The PENGASSAN boss further urged the government to strengthen laws and sanctions those involved in oil theft, while he advocating for harsher penalties to deter bad behavior and encourage integrity within the industry.
“Our distribution chain has challenges, the distribution chain is weak in the downstream section of the oil and gas industry and that is why today you see queues in most of the stations. The problem may be solved today, but tomorrow it will re-surfaced,” he said.
He expressed that Nigeria’s population is big and “there is no country in the world that is as big as Nigeria, that has the same population that we have in Nigeria, that brings its product to a particular area and uses trucks to take it around.
“Because whenever there are challenges, whenever roads are bad, whenever you have floods, those trucks cannot pass through a certain area and what is going to happen? we are going to have scarcity.”

Source: thesun.ng

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