Mr. Godfrey Okorie is the Depot Manager of the biggest petroleum product storage facility in Nigeria; Capital Oil and Gas, even though he is now appearing on this page for the first time, he has always been a friend of Shipping Position Daily through the years. In this chat with our correspondent DAPO OLAWUNI at the depot in Apapa, Lagos last week, Okorie opened up that since emergency rule was invoked in three northern state of Nigeria, activities at Apapa tank farms have dropped. Apart from this, he confirmed that the depots are now flooded with petroleum products.
Why did you ban trucks from staying over in your terminal?
In a facility like this, you need to put security checks in place, the reason being that today in our country we are having security challenges and so we must not lose sight of where we are operating in, some people will want to come in disguise, and when you now load a product and park it overnight, anything can happen, there may be explosion because you never can tell what the tanker is carrying, and because the tanker is carrying a very volatile product which is PMS, there may be expansion on the truck and it may explode, some people will want to leave their truck at the depot, waiting to get alert from the bank, in order to discourage all these, it becomes necessary to inform them earlier on so that you don't leave your truck here, leaving your truck here is a risk to the facility. Apart from these it hinders vehicular movement, assuming there is an incident and trucks are littered here and there, there won't be a way to escape if there is an emergency, so it becomes necessary to inform the people that the practice must stop.
What is responsible for the lull in activities at the petroleum depots?
There are lots of factors that actually led to it, the greatest achievement that this present administration has done is the state of emergency in the three northern states, there is no gain saying that we consume fifty five liters of PMS on daily basis when actually the products are being taken away from the borders, it is now clear that majority of the product that is being lifted here is being taken across the border, but now that we have emergency rule in these three states, people are no longer finding it easy to take the product out of the country. This is the first time that you will go to a filling station in the north and find two to three trucks still standing and waiting to be discharged, this is the first time you will go to the north and get the product at the same price, most of the product does not go to the east because in the east they depend on Port Harcourt, Calabar, Warri, so their coming to Lagos is only when there is issue with those areas and this is a one-off thing, but majority of the product being loaded here goes to the North, now there is no way they can take the product out of there and now you can see depots being abandoned, they are milking the government, they get the product at a cheaper rate, when they take it to the north they will get their PEF refund, so they can afford to get up to 300 trucks and bring them to load in Lagos, it is now that people can measure the exact volume of product we are using, if you go through the whole of Lagos there is no filling station that does not have fuel, here you can see a vessel at the jetty waiting to discharge product but people are not loading, it is only when you load that you can create space, you now discover that individuals selling this product are now giving it out at a cheaper rate, when government is selling at N87.66 they are selling their own at N87.3 or N87, you can now imagine because the 1kobo is something, the difference from what the NNPC is selling to that of the private sector is something, people now know, and majority of them taking the product do not have filling stations, they get the product, sell it and make money, I am not against that, but it is now that government should also understand that a lot of things has been happening up in the North, so we must know that we are not the ones consuming the 55million liters.
Where does the product go to then?
Of course they go to Niger Republic, they go to Chad, and because they have a cartel whenever they are coming everybody gives way. The Boko Haram issue in not also helping matters because they are working hand in hand with these people, we have emergency rule in just three states and there is clause in the market, by the time they advance to other states only God knows what will happen.
What we gathered is that most of these illegally refined products are finding their way into the tank farms
This is not true. How many quantities are they refining? Even the boys operating the illegal refineries needs to be encouraged, Taiwan today is taking over technology because they were imitating, locally we can construct a refinery that can even complement what we are importing, we have the raw material which is the crude oil, but the government is corrupt and the people in the government are just there to spend money, you find a situation whereby politicians are being recycled, why? Does it mean that they are the ones that have the highest knowledge? And yet we have first class graduates that ought to be allowed to come and contribute their quota, the country belong to everybody. If you say the illegally refined products are finding their way into the tank farms, in what quantity are they going to refine that they can now hire a vessel to transport it and bring it down here? There are questions we need to ask ourselves, what profit margin are you going to make? If you are not bring in product legally you have to clear with customs, get clearance from DPR, Navy and the rest, by the time you pay all these, how much profit are you going to make, I don't want to rule it out but I don't think that within this shoreline there is anything like that because I know that the DPR are very strict about it, and for such a thing to happen what it means that all the statutory bodies have to be involved.
Is it true that the refineries are working now?
Our refineries are working, but the question is, are they optimally? Were the refineries not working before? Of course they were working, even there was a time they told us that the Port Harcourt Refinery is working optimally up to 75%, Kaduna refinery is working optimally up to 65%, but at that time we were still having fuel scarcity, the truth of the matter is that those borders through which the product are being taken away has been blocked, it is a blessing in disguise, when you take the product and you know that where you are going you will meet the joint task force you will be losing, that is the more reason why these people are criticizing the state of emergency rule.
Before now, how many tankers were you loading per day?
When you talk of loading tankers and receiving, they are two different things, it is what garbage in that garbage out. Before now, in a week we receive 3 to 4 vessels of PMS, the issue is that, as the vessels are discharging, we are trucking out, but now you can see a vessel here that there is no space. Before now we usually load between 350 to 450 trucks per day, but now the highest is 35 to 40 trucks, back then, we open all the loading arms, but now we are not. If government can sustain the presence of the military across all the borders in the north, when you talk of military it should be done in a way that people from the south are taken to the area, because if they allow the northerners to be there it will be the same thing, they might compromise.
Is this not affecting business?
I don't see the way its affecting them, I don't believe in the fact that this is how we have been doing it so it is right, if by this we get things done in the right perspective, then let it continue, now you can drive to a filling station and get fuel, it is a chain reaction, when somebody gets product here at a higher rate and now add the cost of transporting and other payments, when he gets to the station he can be able to sell at that N97, which means that you are left with the option of adjusting your meter and this is cheating, you are robbing Peter to pay Paul which is not healthy, it is because of the selfishness of those in authority that they will continue to increase pump price, otherwise, the crude oil, God has given it to us, we have the refinery, so why can't the refinery work optimally. Government should encourage these boys engaging in illegal refineries; get them properly trained so that they can begin to do it legally. Instead of seeing this refineries and destroying them, and at the end of the day still export our crude for refining and bringing it back to sell at a higher price, who is deceiving who? The bottom line is that the government is not being sincere.
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