Oil marketer assures on JET A1 scarcity

Aviation fuel marketers have assured that the lingering JET A1 scarcity would be a thing of the past before the end of the week.

An oil marketer who spoke to WoleshadareNews under a condition of anonymity said that they were already  expecting delivery of additional stock.

Aviation fuel scarcity that almost crippled the industry continued yesterday, as Arik Air, Dana Airline and Medview said they are grappling with flight schedule disruptions due to the severe scarcity of Jet A1 across the country.

Since the beginning of this year, Nigeria has been grappling with inadequate supply of aviation fuel, leading in most cases to severe shortage of the product and consequently, the disruption of flight operations. The aviation fuel scar-city got worse at the weekend leading to many flight delays and cancellations.

Dana Airline said the situation had affected its operations. Spokesman for Dana, Kingsley Ezeanyanwu, said the airline had not cancelled any of its 19 flights it does every day,but that there had been flight rescheduling by the carrier, leading to delays.

He said: “We rescheduled flights because of scarcity of aviation fuel, which is biting harder, but despite that, our airline was yet to cancel any of their flights.”

A source in Medview also told woleshadare.net that the airline was also affected by the situation, hoping that the scarcity would ease off before the end of the week.

For Arik, it is the same story. Arik operates an average of 120 daily flights, requiring about 500,000 litres of fuel daily.

Spokesman for Arik, Banji Ola, said due to the large number of domestic and international flights, it is the most impacted by the inability of oil marketers to meet its daily fuel requirements on a timely and consistent basis.

This, he said, has forced the airline to postpone flights while waiting for the fuel marketers to source and deliver the product.

On many occasions, despite all efforts in engaging the marketers, if fuel could not be sourced, the flights may eventually be cancelled, causing not only revenue loss for the airline, but also inconveniencing or leaving the passengers stranded.

He said Arik Air has identified supply and infrastructural challenges of the marketers as some of the key factors responsible for the epileptic supply of aviation fuel. “At the root of the fuel supply crisis is low stock due to the inability of marketers to source for the foreign exchange to import more Jet A1 fuel into the country.

There is also a distribution challenge as the discharging of vessels bringing Jet A1 and other petroleum products are done in the same jetty and loading various trucks for distribution to cities like Kano or Abuja takes considerable effort and time,” he said.

Ola explained that the situation in the north was even more difficult since the product takes longer to be delivered due to the trucking distance. Oil marketers have also resorted to trucking of aviation fuel to the airports because hydrants are not consistently available at the airports.

Arik Air has also stated that it was working on a longer term plan which will be finalised in the coming months to mitigate this situation and to be in a better position to address such supply shortages and delays.

“While the Federal Government and oil marketers are working hard to address the supply and distribution challenges, we appeal to our guests to bear with us as they may experience flight delays and cancellations because of the prevailing scarcity of aviation fuel across the country,” Arik stated.

Air Peace has appealed to the Federal Government and aviation authorities to urgently intervene in the lingering scarcity of JETA1 fuel, saying the development has disrupted the operations of airlines in the country.

Chief Operating Officer of Air Peace, Mrs. Oluwatoyin Olajide, regretted that despite the airline’s efforts to source aviation fuel for its operations, some of its flight schedules were affected by the scarcity. She urged the Federal Government to address the situation to save the operations of airlines from grinding to a halt. ”

For quite some time now, there has been a general scarcity of JET-A1 fuel in the country. Since the development, we have resorted to different alternative sources to secure the product to ensure that flight delays did not disrupt the programmes of our numerous loyal customers. ”

Although this has proved very costly for us to manage, we have spared nothing in our bid to source aviation fuel for our operations. We, however, regret that despite our huge efforts, we have not been able to secure enough fuel to run our operations without some hitches,” Olajide said.

Wole Shadare