Fuel scarcity in the downstream sector of oil and gas industry in Nigeria

Very often, Nigeria which is the sixth largest oil-producing country in the world, witnesses’ very severe fuel scarcity that imposes economic hardship on the citizens. A few researchers, the press and individuals have pointed to some factors such as smuggling, pipeline vandalization, fuel subsidy related policy etc, as being responsible for the scarcity. This research aimed at finding out differences in the severity of fuel scarcity in the six political zone of the country, and whether economic hardship was linked to the scarcity. A multistage sampling technique was adopted in the six political zones of Nigeria. Two cities were randomly selected from each zone, making a total of twelve cities which were administered questionnaires, distributed to thirty-five households in each of the cities. The responses of heads of households showed that there’s a significant difference (<0.05) between the zones and also there was a significant relationship (<0.05) of economic hardship to fuel scarcity, indicating that the factors responsible for scarcity in one were not the same as those factors for other zones. Also, economic hardship resulted from the cumulative impacts of the factors responsible for fuel scarcity. It is recommended that since most of the factors are man-made, government should make policies to control fuel scarcity.