Investors in the Nigeria local refineries, including the Dangote Petroleum Refinery can help the country end the importation of refined petroleum products in 18 months should the Federal Government works with their plans.
The refiners, who spoke under the aegis of the Crude Oil Refiners Association of Nigeria, (CORAN) said there are other refineries at different stages of completion to join the 650,000-capacity Dangote Petroleum Refinery.
Mr Eche Idoko, Publicity Secretary of the crude oil refiners association of Nigeria in an interview said the Dangote refinery and other local refineries in the country can satisfy the energy needs of the nation.
The Chief Executive officer of the Nigeria Midstream and Downstream Regulatory Authority (MMDRA)Farouk Lawal in a public interview said the country will continue to import petroleum products to ensure the energy needs of Nigerians and stop Dangote redinary from monopolizing the oil and gas sector of the Economy
The CORAN official argued that there was no way the government would tackle rising inflation if it did not address the high cost of fuel, especially by working with the local refiners.
“You can’t tackle inflation if you don’t address the pump price of petroleum products. You cannot say you have a plan to step down inflation and you are not involving the key sectors like the refineries; you have to involve local refiners , let’s work together.
“And CORAN is assuring Nigerians that, in 18 months, if the Nigerian government work with their programmes and plans, they are capable of stopping importation of petroleum products completely. There are refineries in different stages of completion. In 18 months, we can produce required energy needs of Nation, he stated.
The association Publicity Secretary, Idoko said Nigeria has enough crude oil to feed Dangote and other refineries but noted that crude theft has been the major challenge to the upstream oil sector and must be swiftly addressed.
“We have the crude oil to feed these local refineries and more fields are being licensed by the day. So, there will be enough crude to feed the refineries. Our production figure is dropping because of the crude that is being stolen daily in the oil rich region
When we have local refineries operating in the country, crude theft will be reduced. People steal crude through the pipelines and most of the refineries are located close to some of these fields.
The secretary said what this does is that the crude oil producers will no longer need to pump their crude through the pipelines to the terminal for export.
“The local refineries will just truck from the fields or get a short pipeline or barge from their fields to these places. We are losing heavily because unscrupulous elements are stealing crude from the long pipelines,” Idoko stated.
The CORAN official said the international oil companies shoulh be mandated to sell crude oil to local refineries at a price lower than the international priceto encourage local producers
He asked the Federal Government to ensure that crude oil is sold in naira and not dollars, saying this would reduce the cost of fuel production and the pressure on the local currency.
He mentioned that ending the importation of fuel would strengthen the naira against the dollar, asking that the IOCs should start selling fuel directly to local refiners instead of referring them to their trading agents in Europe.