A vessel laden with poor quality petrol was on Sunday prevented from offloading by industry regulators.
Besides, another vessel with 34,000 metric tonnes of petrol, which met with regulatory specifications, could not discharge because of a leakage at one of the discharge facilities.
These developments have dampened efforts by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation to ease scarcity in Lagos.
Our correspondent gathered that long queues had started easing in some South West states, particularly Ogun, where reports from depots confirmed that in addition to the 113 trucks loaded for that region on Saturday, another four million litres or 131 trucks with a capacity of 30,000 litres each were also loaded on Sunday. This contributed in feeding retail outlets in the state with products.
However, Lagos, which daily consumption is estimated at six million litres per day had a reduction in quantity even though it loaded 136 trucks.
Investigations revealed that the 136 trucks only added up to 2.5 million litres. This means that the trucks were only half-full.
Officials of the NNPC, who spoke with our correspondents in confidence, said that they suspected that marketers were diverting the products to other parts of the country to gain from Petroleum Equalisation Fund.
The issue of diversion was discussed on Sunday at a meeting between the major marketers and the management of the NNPC in Lagos.
At the meeting, the NNPC�s Group Managing Director, Mr. Funsho Kupolokun, condemned the prevalent sharp practices by marketers including diversion, adjustment of metres and pump prices, as well as forcing motorists to buy company-specific products like lubricants.
According to the NNPC boss, �All these sharp practices will fizzle out once normalcy returns to the market. But any marketer we catch in the act will lose his license.�
Reports from the private depots revealed that two vessels bearing nine million litres of petrol finished discharging on Monday, while another two � one with 13 million litres and the other 18 million litres � were still being expected.
The Chairman of the Major Marketers Committee, Mr. Wale Tinubu, said that the majors had agreed to work with the NNPC for products distribution to ease the current scarcity situation.
Meanwhile, the former Minister of Petroleum, Chief Philip Asiodu, on Monday said that the country needed competent people to administer the sub-sector.
Asiodu, who spoke in Lagos during an interview with newsmen, said government had no justification for the current scarcity of the petroleum products because experts had submitted a report since 2003, which offered a permanent solution to the problem.
According to him, a comprehensive strategy for the deregulation of the petroleum industry, maintenance of the refineries, and training of the workers in the sub sector was articulated in the report, which was not implemented.
He lamented that rather than working on the useful suggestions offered by the experts, the current officials in the petroleum ministry were busy apportioning blames on pipeline vandals.