President of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASSAN, Comrade Festus Osifo, on Thursday attributed the persistent fuel queues across the country to a weak distribution chain within the downstream sector of the oil and gas industry.
Speaking on the second day at the 3rd edition of the PENGASSAN Energy and Labour Summit in Abuja, Osifo called for urgent reforms to address the issue.
He said that Nigeria’s distribution chain using trucks on the nation’s bad roads is outdated and insufficient to meet the demands of its large population.
Osifo said, “There is no country in the world as big as Nigeria, with our population, that relies on a single point of product importation and uses trucks to distribute across the nation.”
The PENGASSAN boss, who is the President of Trade Union Congress, TUC, explained that the method is vulnerable to disruptions, including bad roads and flooding, which can lead to fuel scarcity.
He emphasized the need for the government to develop and strengthen the country’s value chain to ensure a more efficient and reliable distribution system, warning that without these improvements, the country would continue to face recurring fuel shortages.
Osifo also addressed other critical issues facing the oil and gas industry where he noted 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.
He called on the government to take over security responsibilities from investors, which would significantly reduce production costs.
Osifo further urged the government to strengthen laws and sanctions against those involved in oil theft, while he advocated for harsher penalties to deter bad behavior and encourage integrity within the industry.
The PENGASSAN President said, “Our distribution chain has challenges, that the distribution chain is weak in the downstream section of the oil and gas industry.
“So that is why today you see queues in most of the stations. The problem may be solved today, but tomorrow it will be surfaced.
“Because 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.
“So we must do everything possible to strengthen that area. So as PENGASSAN, we have called for this in the past, and we also reiterate that today, that the value chain must be developed.”
