If the calibre of stakeholders who turned up for the recent seminar that was put together by the Maritime Reporters Association of Nigeria (MARAN) is anything to go by, one can safely assume that Nigerians are getting closer to achieving the objective of participating in the lucrative crude oil lifting business.
For the first time since many years that seminars and workshops devoted to debates on crude oil lifting business have taken the centre stage (at least) among maritime industry stakeholders, both the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) sent representations.
This is about the second time that MARAN will be organising a seminar on crude oil lifting; the first being almost a decade ago. The jaw- jaw did not come out with anything better than what others before it did. The arguments for or against are the same, the ramifications are indeed of similar weight.
As a corporate member of the Nigerian shipping community, we express deep appreciation to MAARAN for not being tired of setting agenda, of bringing issues to the fore and for adding value to journalism.
Blessed with a rich and vast coastline of hydrocarbon and being – a strong member of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the world’s sixth largest producer and exporter of crude oil and (until recently) Africa’s number one, Nigeria should not be battling to have a slice of the cake.
Naturally, she should explore, exploit, process and export, but because the technology to do all of these rests with the developed economy, Nigeria can only ‘bark’ her desires to lift crude oil, she can not ‘bite’.
Nigeria which produces about two million barrels of crude daily is not in a position to influence the dynamics and politics of crude lifting in the face of stringent conditionality.
As much as we agree that crude oil carriage requires acquisition of not only Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCC, but also acquisition of technology, we are however disturbed that the obvious disadvantages have led the multinationals to suck the nation’s oil sector dry, leaving indigenous players (who in any case are on the fringes) to lament their lot.
It cost mega dollars to acquire a crude oil tanker, and it costs fortunes to insure the high- grade cargo; hence the insistence by the western shipping cartels for Free On Board (FOB) terms of freight.
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It is this same imbalance that has permeated the quest to participate in the carriage of refined petroleum products. The quest led to the enactment of Cabotage Act almost five years ago; with the hope that the unattainable desire of indigenous operators would start been met from there. How wrong we all are.
Five years down the line, indigenous ship owners still lament that rather than better their lot, it still very difficult for them to effectively lift petroleum products along the nation’s coastal waters; an indication that there may have been a violation of the Act which stipulates clearly that Nigerians should be given preference to carry their countries products across their coastal and inland waters.
It is our strong believe that the answer to the total domination in crude and almost total domination in products lifting by foreign interests depends largely on how soon the local content bill which is currently before the National Assembly is passed into law.
We are deeply worried that Nigerians may not be able to participate in the carriage of their God-given crude oil until the deposits dry up. Otherwise how does one explain the trauma of watching multinationals who enjoy the backing of some selfish indigenous interests who have no respect for patriotism ‘lick the juice’ while Nigerians look helplessly.
With determination on the part of the government, the local content bill can be given accelerated treatment, while the on going review of the Cabotage Act should also take cognisance of and address the dominance of foreign interests in coastal freighting of petroleum products.
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