The chairman of the Crude Oil Refineries Owners Association of Nigeria (CORAN), Mr Momoh Oyarekhua, has said that Nigerian local refineries should be protected from unfair competition against importers and international petroleum traders in line with provisions of the Nigeria’s Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), section 317 (8-9).
He made the call while speaking on recent developments in the petroleum industry about pricing, product quality issues, and accusations of monopoly against Dangote Refinery.
Speaking on the Channels Television’s ‘Business Morning’ show monitored in Lagos, Oyarekhua insisted that local refineries were not being fairly treated or encouraged.
Reacting to the questions posed to him, Oyarekhua said: “Regarding these issues such as pricing, Dangote perceived monopoly, quality of products and sundry challenges facing the industry, CORAN thinks that people are not being fair to the local refiners and it is an effort to frustrate local refining in Nigeria.”
While speaking further on the quality of imported petroleum products, he stated that there were no doubts that there are possibilities of adulterated products being shipped into Nigeria and that there was a need for the government and the regulators to checkmate and discourage the incidences of importation of petroleum products below specified quality standards, and also stop importation with the view to urgently allow quality locally refined products to thrive.
“We see the importation of low-quality products as an effort to frustrate our local refining in Nigeria. The truth is that, if products are being imported into Nigeria to compete against products that are produced by refineries in Nigeria, there won’t be healthy competition.
“Some of the things Dangote have said, they are quite very true. I mean, products have been blended and we are aware.”
On the issue of pricing, Oyarekhua alluded that pricing was subject to the FX situation of the country and the constant instability in the market, which is impacting the stability of product pricing adversely.
He stated, “There is the FX element which we are all aware of. Today, FX has been going up and down and it has been very unstable. At the parallel market level, it is about 1,700 something 700 plus, depending on who you are buying from and crude price has been fluctuating. These are the factors that are regulating the price of refined products and we all know what the impacts are
“If you go and benchmark this using Platt and looking at the petrol index in Platt, anybody today who says that he can import any product into Nigeria for less than 900 naira, the person must be questioned because this is an international market, is not anything that is hidden, the calculations are there.”
He, however, noted that local refineries were facing significant frustrations due to low and zero incentives from the government.
“What we are doing today, nobody is giving us incentives, there is no incentive to the refiners even recently the president said that we should be supplied crude, but none of us has been supplied crude.
“Nobody is even discussing with the modular refineries owners. These issues are very discouraging and frustrating. We have been in this industry now for seven years and it is all frustration and more frustration.
“We need some form of support from the government, and we do hope that this support we hope for will come even as I guess our hope now should hinge more on the regulators,” he stated.
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