Nigerian Newsday

By Smart Niyi, Gombe

The Directorate of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has vowed to intensify its monitoring of filing stations in the country to ensure they do not tamper with their dispensing pumps to defraud customers.

The DPR operations controller in charge of Gombe and Bauchi, Mr. G. S. Dayilim, stated this last week during this year’s annual general meeting between the directorate and marketers of petroleum products in Gombe.

The DPR boss said the directorate was poised to rid the country of marketers who tamper with their dispensing pumps, "thereby selling above prices stated on their price billboards".

Mr. Dayilim also urged marketers with sub-standard price billboard to hasten in putting them aright as recommended by the DPR.

He said the deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry has brought with it new guidelines on pricing that resulted in the introduction of price billboard, expected to be complied with by all filling stations.

While observing that the supply of petroleum products has substantially improved after the deregulation, Mr. Dayilim also said the monopoly of supply of these products has ceased with the establishment of private petroleum products depots.

He also disclosed that in strict adherence to the petroleum regulations the DPR would not renew licences of substandard and dormant filling stations. Some goes for those without concrete forecourt, price billboard and logo inscriptions of the companies’ signboards and canopies.

The aim of the annual general meeting, according to the DPR, is to acquaint petroleum products marketers with their operational lapses which it (DPR) observed during its routine surveillance of petroleum marketers activities and ensure strict compliance to petroleum laws and regulations.