A freight forwarding and logistics expert; Mr. Pius Ujubonu has said that with the right government policy in place, it is possible to relocate petroleum tank farms from Apapa and relocate them to other deep seaport areas outside the Lagos corridors.
He however said that moving the tank farms would be at a great loss to the owners of the oil companies in terms of financial commitments to dismantle the tanks and move them to a new site approved for them and reconstruct them. He also said that removing the tank farms from Apapa would be a loss for many Nigerians in terms of massive job losses.
Ujubonu suggested that tenure of removal should be issued by the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) to the petroleum marketers till 2020.
He lamented that every surrounding of the seaport in Apapa area of Lagos State is currently surrounded by petroleum tank farms and that this is not healthy for the operators. He said that tank farms are a time bomb waiting to explode in Apapa.
Speaking, Ujubonu who is also a member of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) stated that “tank farms can be removed from where they are right now, they might lose few things, but they can be dismembered and removed, most of them are not permanent, they were constructed in Apapa”
“So, if some other place is allocated to them, they could be removed and reconstructed, the only thing is that the losses and the economic wastage would be large on both the government and the masses. You can imagine the number of staff working in those tank farms”
“If they are moved from Apapa to any deep sea ports, the likelihood of a lot of people losing their job is there, the likelihood of some of the owners not having the resources to move them is also there, but the removal of the tank farm is not negotiable”
“Also, tenure of removal should be given to them to say that, between now and 2020, we don’t expect to see any tank farm around Lagos environment or even if there be, it should not be around Lagos corridor”
Ujubonu said that even though Lagos is a littoral state, the government did not envisage importation of petroleum product until 1991 when the need for skeletal importation of petroleum products arose. According to him, the NNPC had built its depots, but because of vandalism, most of the depots were disconnected from the NNPC pumps and this was what gave rise to building make-shift tank farms.
He advised that a deliberate policy should be made to control and contain activities of the tank farms but that the final solution is to ensure that Nigerian petroleum products are no longer imported.
“Any government that has the political will would be able to move petroleum tank farms from Apapa, because if the feedback from the consumer impact analysis is pointing to the fact that the tank farms have become a nuisance, what the government does is to serve the people to live freely and secured”, he said.
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