The NNPC has asked trading firms for emergency supplies of 500,000 tonnes of petrol to replace cargoes that were rejected because of their poor quality, insider sources have said.
Megacity Lagos and the capital Abuja face fuel shortages, and over the weekend, queues built up outside some petrol stations.
The emergency supplies equal 1,415, 800,000 litres of petrol, which will just be OK for about 28 days, at 50 million litres a day.
The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority said it found petrol with methanol above national specifications in the supply chain and removed the fuel from circulation.
Methanol, in small amounts, is a regular petrol additive.
The regulator said the supplier of the off-specification petrol was known but it did not name the firm.
It added NNPC had “intensified efforts at increasing the supply of petrol … to bridge the unforeseen supply gap.”
