PETROL queues have returned to filling stations in Abuja after barely three months of relative calm."Checks around the city yesterday, showed that most stations were out of stock and shut to business.

At the city centre, long queues formed at the Conoil and TotalEnergies Stations opposite the NNPC Towers.

Speaking to Vanguard on the cause of the latest shortage, the Public Relations Officer of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, Chinedu Ukadike, blamed it on logistics and bad state of roads in the country.

Ukadike explained that most inland depots were without the product, saying it was taking longer days for trucks to move from the south to the northern parts of the country.

The problem is logistics in nature and also the effect of long hauls because most of the depots are without the product. Also there was a bit of a problem in Port Harcourt that stopped loading for six days. Port Harcourt depot also supplies to Abuja and that gap is also contributing to the shortage in Abuja.

Ukadike disclosed that private depot owners have also hiked their price to N170 per litre, adding that marketers who had paid at the rate of N167 per litre were not given the product until the differentials were paid."He however assured that the queues would disappear by the weekend as more trucks arrive from the southern part of the country.

The perennial queues had disappeared in mid-July after marketers unilaterally raised the pump price of petrol from N165 per litre to N185 in disregard to the Federal Government approved rate of N165 per litre.