Oil marketers have decided to begin blending the more than 100 million litres of contaminated Premium Motor Spirit, also known as gasoline, that were smuggled into Nigeria over two weeks ago.

On Tuesday, 15th February 2022, it was learned that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) had not yet recalled all of the contaminated PMS, which had been occupying space in filling station tanks.

As a result, marketers claim that the situation has made it difficult for filling stations to receive new items to sell to their clients, worsening the scarcity of gasoline and resulting in large lineups in Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Niger, Nasarawa, and other states.

Chief Ukadike Chinedu, the Nation’s Public Relations Officer of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, informed our correspondent that some Lagos shops had begun combining the tainted PMS with clean petrol.

“That is not true,” Ukadike said when asked if the NNPC had recalled all of the contaminated PMS, as some reports claimed on Tuesday.

“I also want to tell you that in our members’ filling stations, some of which I know in Port Harcourt, Ichie, and Obigbo in Rivers State, as well as a few in Abuja, I have their names and numbers,” he said.

And they’ve been frantically trying to find new products to mix with the ones in their tanks and get everything out to the public.

Story: Ralia Adama

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