Activities at the Port Harcourt Refinery came to a standstill on Monday following a protest by tanker drivers and the independent petroleum marketers association of Nigeria.
The protest was aimed at drawing the attention of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the Pipelines and Products Marketing company, PPMC to the hike in the price of diesel and kerosene.
The depot stakeholders also complained that the NNPC had not made diesel and kerosene available for the past 7 months.
Chairman of the independent marketers association of Nigeria, Emmanuel Iningba said the non-availability of the two essential products caused an upsurge in the patronage of illegally refined petroleum products popularly known as kpofire.
“The Portharcourt depot stakeholders met with PPMC management to register their displeasure over what has been happening at the depot.
“For the past seven months, Portharcourt depot has not loaded AGO (Diesel) or DPK (Kerosene). It is only imported PMS (Premium Motor Spirit) that we have been loading.
“NNPC on its part keep increasing the price of AGO and DPK, the current price of DKP is two hundred and thirteen naira ten kobo and AGO is two hundred and twenty naira per litre.
“This increment is done without the availability of these products in Portharcourt. Depot and marketers who have collected loan facilities from banks now have nothing to show for it.
“We are saying no to this frustrating situation, we don’t have diesel to power our trucks, the petroleum products you see in Portharcourt now is (kpofire) illegal refined product. It has taken over the market, which is not supposed to be so‘’
The protesters gave a one week ultimatum to the NNPC to make diesel and kerosene available at a stable price to marketers or face withdrawal of services.
“We will withdraw our services within one week if they refuse to keep to the promise made, that by 1st week of December those petroleum products would be made available in portharcourt.
“It’s obvious that we marketers are been treated like we are not Nigerians and we know that Mr. President is not aware of what is going on, if not he would have addressed the issue”
