Oil marketers on Wednesday said the scarcity of Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol, in many parts of Nigeria was due to the unavailability of mother vessels to ship the product to the country.

Also, they insisted on raising the price of the commodity following the hike in the rate of the United States dollar against the naira, as it was gathered that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited was lacking products in many of its depots.

He stated that when the dollar strenthened, the cost of PMS locally would definitely rise because Nigeria was importing the commodity.

Asked whether the scarcity was also because oil marketers were again moving to hike PMS price, Ukadike replied in the affirmative.

On whether marketers were not buying again from NNPC, the IPMAN official stated that most products of the national oil firm were stored in the company’s mother depot.

The NNPC did not respond when contacted to speak on the issue, amidst the massive queues that greeted the Conoil filling station directly opposite the headquarters of the company in Abuja on Wednesday.