Cape Town (Platts)--10Jul2007

Members of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria,
the umbrella body for the country's over 1,000 local fuel marketers, on Monday
seized the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp-operated Warri depot to protest
the price of petroleum products, the daily Punch newspaper reported Tuesday.
     The action brought work at the depot to a halt, and IPMAN members also
shut retail outlets in Edo and Delta states. It was led by the group's vice
chairman in the Warri Zone, Chief Edafevwotu Akpos.
     The marketers said the government's directive that they sell gasoline at
the regulated price of Naira 70/liter ($0.56/liter) was unacceptable and they
called on the government to speed up repairs on the Warri refinery so that
products can flow from the 125,000 b/d plant, which has been shut for over a
year.
     NNPC last month said repairs to pipelines feeding both the Warri refinery
and the 110,000 b/d Kaduna refinery will not be finished before August this
year.
     Akpos said marketers sourced gasoline from private depots in Lagos at
Naira 74/liter, adding that the bad conditions of the Benin/Lagos Expressway
had escalated transport costs by 100%. 
     He noted that members of IPMAN in Edo and Delta states were allotted only
10 tankers per day to service 1,682 filling stations, while their counterparts
in other areas were assigned 40 trucks per day, the paper reported.
     Retail service stations in Africa's most populous nation depend on trucks
owned by individuals for the supply of fuel lifted from the 22 state-owned oil
depots scattered across the country and a few others owned by oil majors
including Chevron, ExxonMobil and Total.
     The government raised gasoline prices on May 27, citing the need to cut
subsidies on domestic consumption of fuel. The government said it spends Naira
250 billion ($2 billion) annually subsidizing fuel imports in order to keep
domestic pump prices low.