How Nigerians make money during Fuel scarcity

Posted by Felix Okoli on Friday February 9, 2018 at 15:55:10:

The non availability or scarcity of fuel is one of the problems Nigerians normally face on an almost annual basis and one wonders why this keeps happening in a country that is regarded as an oil producing nation. One of the major reasons why fuel products like petrol or diesel keeps getting scarce in Nigeria is because there are no working refineries in the country and so most of those products are normally imported.

During fuel scarcity in Nigeria, business activities tend to slow down as people need fuel for a variety of reasons such as powering their generators and their vehicles. When fuel scarcity happens, transportation and business operation costs tend to increase and this ultimately increases the cost of living in Nigeria for a while until fuel starts to become available.

While some Nigerians normally suffer dufing this period of fuel scarcity, there are however those who make money during this time by taking advantage of the business opportunity available.

Black market petrol sellers are one of the people who make money during fuel scarcity as there normally source for fuel at a much lower but unofficial price from the dealers and then reselling to end users at a higher price otherwise called the black marekt price. They could buy a litre of petrol for N300 only to resell to end users at N450 to N500 per litre. During the Fuel scarcity that happened in the last week of May 2015 and prior to a handover of government, it was so serious that black market buyers were paying about N500 to N1000 for a litre of petrol.

Another group of people that make money during fuel scarcity are the public transport providers. During the fuel crisis in that same money of May 2015, transport fares rose by 100% and people still paid for it since they had to get to work, school and other important places. People don't mind paying for public transport services if they see it as necessary and would save their time but only few people would rather trek to their destinations.

A third group of Nigerians who normally make money during fuel scarcity are the raw food retailers. Those people normally make the excuse that transporting the fresh food from the farm together market costs more for them during the period than was the case in the past. During a fuel scarcity crisis, foodstuff buyers who visit the raw food market to buy things like tomatoes, rice, garri and so on would notice that they have to pay more for buying the food stufs they normally buy on a periodic basis. Some sellers however, do have large storage facilities and so normally stock up their stores before an impending fuel crisis so that they would be able to sell at a higher price.

A 4th group of people that make money during a fuel scarcity crisis in Nigeria are those who sell cold drinks and other related products such as ice blocks. Since most of Nigeria's power plants are powered by fuel, the power companies normally suspend their service during a fuel crisis and this causes people to depend more on generators than on public power. This now causes retailers of cold drinks and ice blocks to increase the prices of their products so as to sell for an added profit. Some of them also normally buy diesel in advance before fuel marketers go on strike just to ensure they never get out of stock but will still make more money by increasing their prices.

One key to making money in Nigeria during a fuel crisis is to anticipate and prepare for it before it happens. If you have cars and power plants, you should ensure their tanks are well filled and you should also have a reserve. If you are a retailer, you should also buy stock in advance so that you don't spend more buying it during the fuel crisis period.