Rickshaw taxis, cars and motorbikes line the streets of Nigeria's northern city Kano as the fuel scarcity hits drivers
AFP

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) on Sunday denied they owed $6.8 billion to international oil traders and vowed to end petrol queues by Wednesday.

"NNPC Ltd does not owe the sum of $6.8bn to any international trader(s). In the oil trading business, transactions are carried out on credit, so it is normal to owe at one point or the other," Chief Corporate Communications Officer of NNPC Olufemi Soneye said, Punch reported.

"But NNPC Ltd through its subsidiary, NNPC Trading, has many open trade credit lines from several traders. The company is paying its obligations of related invoices on a first-in-first-out basis."

However, he did not specify the financial obligations that NNPC is currently handling. Regarding remittances, he clarified that it was not true that NNPC Ltd had not contributed any money to the federation account since January.

NNPC Ltd and its subsidiaries regularly pay taxes to the Federal Inland Revenue Service, as per Soneye. He noted that NNPC also pays company income tax to road contractors through the Road Investment Tax Credit Scheme.

Overall, NNPC Ltd is the largest contributor to the tax revenue distributed monthly by the Federation Account Allocation Committee. Soneye emphasized that NNPC was not a regulator and did not control the quality of imported fuel.

Aside from this, NNPC assured that the petrol queues would clear this week, but oil marketers stressed there had been no improvement in loading products at depots.

Meanwhile, black market sellers took advantage of the shortage, selling petrol in jerrycans for between N1,200 and N1,500 per liter, depending on the location.

NNPC is the only company importing petrol to Nigeria. Other dealers have stopped importing petrol because they cannot access the U.S. dollars needed for the imports.

Fuel shortages continued in Abuja, Nasarawa, Niger, and nearby states. The queues at the Northwest filling station near Gbagada stretched to the West End bus stop along the Gbagada-Oworonshoki Expressway.

At the NNPC filling station in Ogudu, the line extended across the nearby bridge, and the same long queues were seen at the MRS filling station at the Estate bus stop.

In Osogbo, Osun State, most filling stations in Ayetoro, Old Garage, and Ota Efun Area had no petrol. However, a few independent sellers were offering fuel at N800 per liter.