To curb the incessant cases of accidents which occur during the transportation of petroleum products across the country, the federal government on Wednesday placed a ban on 60,000-litre fuel tankers from operating on Nigerian roads from March 1, 2025.
Announcing the ban in Abuja, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), said the decision was made in response to the increasing number of accidents involving heavy-duty petroleum tankers nationwide.
Recently, truck-in-transit incidents have increased on Nigerian roads, leading to heavy death tolls and several injuries as well as damage to property andenvironmental hazards.
From the Otedola Bridge incident in 2018 to the Onitsha fuel tanker fire in 2019, to the Kogi tanker explosion in 2020 and the Lokoja explosion that killed several people, the story has been the same.
In 2021, there was the Benue tanker explosion as well as the Ogun state tanker accident in 2023 and in recent time, the deadly incidents in Niger state and Enugu states. In all the indents, among others, overloading has been fingered.
Executive Director, Distribution Systems, Storage, and Retailing Infrastructure at the NMDPRA, Ogbugo Ukoha, while making the announcement in Abuja, said the ban was one of the 10 resolutions reached by the stakeholder’s technical committee on how to drive down the significant increase in crashes that had been observed in relation to trucks and transit incidents and fatalities.
Some of the government agencies which brainstormed on the resolutions included: The Department of State Service (DSS), Federal Fire Service (FFS) Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) and the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG).
Others were: The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), the Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria (DAPPMAN) and the NMDPRA, Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA), Major Energies Marketers of Nigeria (MEMAN), the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), among others.
At the meeting, it was agreed that from March 1, 2025, any truck with an axle load of more than 60,000 litres of hydrocarbon will not be allowed to load at any depot.
“It was decided that beginning March 1, any truck with an axle load that is carrying more than 60,000 litres of hydrocarbon will not be allowed to load at any loading depot. By Q4 of 2025, we will also preclude the loading or transportation of petroleum products on any truck in excess of 45,000 litres.
“So that is the breaking news for today. This is just one out of 10 measures that stakeholders have agreed that need to be addressed if we want to mitigate the high level of trucks in transit accidents.The important thing about this is that for the first time consensus was built amongst all stakeholders and we are continuing to encourage that we work together cohesively to deliver a safe transportation of petroleum products across the country,” Ukoha stated.
Besides, Ukoha dismissed recent claims questioning the quality of fuel in circulation across the country, describing them as bogus, misleading, and unscientific. He assured Nigerians that all imported and locally refined petroleum products meet strict regulatory standards before being released into the market.
The NMDPRA vowed to ensure compliance with petroleum industry standards and specifications, stressing that recent social media claims about the quality of fuel products in circulation are baseless and should be disregarded.
”The standard organisation’s specification includes parameters such as the research octane number, the sulfur content, the density, the colour, the oxygenate level, and many other parameters that you find within that.
”Before any product is distributed in Nigeria, the regulator ensures that from the load port of the product, whether from a domestic refinery or imported from outside the country, and as well as at the discharge port, accredited laboratories must test every product and duly issue certificates of quality to say that the product that is in the in the vessel meets those specifications.
”It’s only on that basis that products are then discharged and distributed across the country,’’ Ukoha explained.
He clarified that colour differentiation, while not impacting quality, is a regulatory requirement under SON specifications to prevent misidentification.
”The only colour in the current specification that is colourless is the ATK. From the sighting of the product, it is for you to tell that this is PMS (petrol) because it complies with the colour, separate from an AGO (diesel), ” he said.
The NMDRA’s executive director also disclosed that daily petrol supply, which averaged 66 million litres before subsidy withdrawal, is now around 50 million litres, with local refineries contributing less than 50 per cent of total supply.
”Following the president’s withdrawal of subsidy, the announcement on May 29, 2023 we immediately saw a steep decline in consumption and between then and as we speak, we’ve continued to do plus or minus 50 million, that’s a considerable reduction in volumes.
”Of these 50 million litres average for each day, less than 50 per cent of that is contributed by domestic refineries and so the shortfall, in accordance with the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), is sourced by way of imports.
”Let me also say that none of the oil marketing companies that own refineries in the country has imported any PMS this year. The other oil marketing companies are the ones that are importing the shortfall.
“If we did nothing to bridge that shortfall, we will have scarcity in our hands, and that’s something that the regulator is mindful of, ensuring that there is sufficient supply of petroleum products across the country.
”So just for clarity, the contribution of local refineries towards the sufficiency is less than 50 per cent currently between January and February 2025, less than 50 per cent of what we require daily, and that shortfall is sourced by way of imports,” he explained.
