President Muhammadu Buhari has been urged to deregulate the downstream sector of the oil and gas sector in other to attract foreigners to invest in the sector.
This advice was given by a stakeholder; Mr. Lucky Obogo in an exclusive chat with Shipping Position Daily last week.
He said that it was wrong for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to force petroleum marketers to sell fuel at N87 per litre when it was clear that the marketers had gone to source for the products on their own.
President Muhammadu Buhari has been urged to deregulate the downstream sector of the oil and gas sector in other to attract foreigners to invest in the sector.
This advice was given by a stakeholder; Mr. Lucky Obogo in an exclusive chat with Shipping Position Daily last week.
He said that it was wrong for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to force petroleum marketers to sell fuel at N87 per litre when it was clear that the marketers had gone to source for the products on their own.
He kicked against the recent moves by the NNPC to ensure that only the agency is allowed to do importation of products, saying that marketers cannot be waiting for NNPC to supply product when they can source product by themselves.
Obogo said that it would be better if a level playing ground is created for everybody.
"I am not against government policies, but if the NNPC is saying that depots should sell products at a particular price and as government you are not supplying them at that price, they go out to source for their product one way or the other just to meet demands of their customers, nobody wants to do business and run at a loss, everybody wants to make gain"
"If the environment is convenient and the marketers get their product at the exact price, they can sell at 87Naira, but you asking them to sell at 87N when they are not getting it at that price, you begin to wonder if the government have the marketer in mind"
He argued that it is not all marketers that enjoy government subsidy on fuel importation, he claimed that only two percent of the marketers have access to the subsidy.
Obogo stressed further that government should "leave the market open and remove subsidy, this will further attract foreign investors, if the subsidy is still there, nobody will want to come and invest in a sector where government will want to control the price, it is going to be stressful"
The petroleum marketer argued that the level of importation can only drop if the refineries are working at full capacity. According to him, government will need to check the quantity of refined products that the refineries will be producing and juxtapose it with the daily consumption of Nigerians.
He said that tank farms operations cannot be threatened by the efficiency of the refineries. He said that the tank farms will not stop working even if the refineries are working optimally.
"Let's not be in a hurry to speculate, let's wait and see, but what people are saying is that when refineries are working, the tank farms will not be there anymore, but I doubt it because the depots will still be working, a Lagos truck cannot go to Kaduna, Warri and Port Harcourt to go and load, it's like you are shifting more traffic to these areas"
"The oil and gas sector is taking a large chunk of our money outside, but if the refineries are working, we would save a lot of money" he said
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