Nigeria; Excess fuel cargoes litter ports as marketers shun imports

TIN news:   As fuel queues rip through states and the federal capital territory, there are indications that a substantial backlog of refined petrol cargoes are waiting to be cleared offshore Togo and Nigeria.
Only the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is said to be importing petrol as the delay in the payment of petroleum subsidy to marketers, who account for more than 40 percent petrol imports, have forced them to stop importing refined fuel.
“Our members can’t import now because of the failure of the government to release the N413 billion outstanding subsidy claims on previous (petrol) imports,” spokesman for the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN), Femi Lawore, told Platts recently.
In recent weeks, a large loading program of petrol in Northwest Europe has resulted in large amounts of gasoline available in the offshore Lome market, as West African importers were keen to buy on the back of the import allocations issued by the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) for the fourth quarter of 2015.