Marketers of petroleum products have called for an end to what they described as monopoly of petrol import by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).
The marketers said it was important that the monopoly be ended as it was hurting the petrol market.
This was the position of the General Manager, Operations, TotalEnergies Marketing Nigeria Limited, Abdulmutalib Rabiu; Chairman, Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria, MOMAN, Olumide Adeosun, and MOMAN Secretary/Chief Executive Officer, Clement Usong in their separate addresses at a virtual press workshop with the theme, ‘Deregulation: Understanding the Downstream Supply Chain.’
Rabiu, who was represented by an independent consultant and former Group Executive Director, NNPC, Bello Rabiu, emphasised the need for the Federal Government to allow healthy competition by granting licenses and access to foreign exchange to marketers willing to get into the products importation business.
“But so long as NNPCL remains the sole importer of products importation, the amount spent on importation should be published for everyone to see because it is public funds that the company is using to bring in the products,” he stated.
Speaking in a similar vein, Adeosun, said although the association was sure that there were sufficient products in-country, lack of investment in infrastructure to guarantee fast and smooth distribution of the products to eradicate scarcity was a major challenge.
According to him, there were about 2.5 billion litres of petroleum products onshore Lagos waters.
“The dialogue with the Nigerian people needs to begin to identify, negotiate and agree to these areas and begin implementation to save the downstream industry, which has been in free fall due to a lack of investment to maintain, renew and grow assets and facilities such as refineries, pipelines, depots, trucks, and modern filling stations,” the MOMAN chairman added.
Usong, on his part, called for phased full deregulation of the petroleum downstream sector to cushion the effects of the sharp rise in petrol price.
He pointed out that years of subsidy had resulted in a diminished capacity to deal with the current local energy crisis.
“A disruption in any part of the supply chain causes ripple effects and results in queues at stations. As a country, we must begin the process of price deregulation to reduce this inefficient subsidy,” Usong added.
