Petroleum product marketers in Port Harcourt on Thursday began selling products to consumers in earnest following the failure of the Federal Government to hike the fuel price.
Marketers had subjected motorists in Port Harcourt and its environs to what the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation called artificial scarcity for over three weeks in anticipation of increase in the price of petroleum products.
Those who had old stock promptly shut their outlets and pretended that they did not have supply while those who were getting new quantity of products declined to sell to the consumers.
However, President Olusegun Obasanjo shocked the marketers when he was silent on the anticipated hike in the fuel price in his New Year address to the nation on January 1, 2006, as was the tradition in the previous years.
Findings by our correspondent revealed that many of the filling stations in the town that had been shut for many days reopened on Wednesday afternoon and had been dispensing products to motorists.