The Northwest Zonal office of the Department of Petroleum Resources, Kaduna, warned erring independent oil marketers against hoarding and selling petrol above the government approved regulated pump price of N165 per litre in the zone.

The zone comprises Kaduna, Katsina, Kano, Jigawa, Sokoto and Zamfara state.

The Zonal Operations Controller, Kaduna, Ahmed Shakur, gave the warning at a press conference in Kaduna on Thursday, adding that defaulting oil marketer risk sanction.

Shakur insisted that the current fuel scarcity situation in Kaduna was as a result of panic buying by motorists in the state.

The DPR boss said, “We are in a regulated regime. However, there is an approved price for Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) and that is why our men are out since Monday to ensure compliance with the approved government price and the second thing we are after during sour surveillance outing is quality control.

“We have to ensure that the product that are being sold to members of the public are genuine. We don’t want adulterated products to be sold to members of the public.

“For us in our operational areas, we have been on top of the game and that is why we have very little incidences of queue and even where you have such queues is as result of panic buying and maybe location of the filling stations.”