The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has charged ship owners under the aegis of Shipowners Association of Nigeria (SOAN) to invest in bigger tanker vessels of up to 30,000 metric tonne, in order to take over operations in the downstream sector of the oil and gas sector.
Group Managing Director of NNPC; Mr. Maikanti Baru gave the advice last week at the inauguration of the newly-elected executives of SOAN in Lagos.
Baru who was represented by General Manager Commercial Shipping of NNPC; Ibrahim Lami observed that most Nigerian ship owners participate only in the upstream sector of the oil and gas while the downstream is controlled mostly by foreigners.
He charged SOAN members to take the job from the foreigners by striving to bring in vessels that can transport the 35million litres of fuel consumed daily by Nigerians.
He said: "Most of the SOAN members operate in the upstream sector of our oil and gas industry, they happen to be the owners of all the vessels we operate with our international oil companies, so I start asking myself that what is happening in the downstream where we have our coastal tankers, where we try to supply the 35 million litres that Nigeria consumes every day"
"Out of the 35 million litres, only 5 million litres is produced in the country because our three refineries are still operating below capacity, so what happens to the 30 million litres remaining? We import everything"
"When we import, most of the import vessels cannot even berth at our port, the best among them only come to Apapa port, the remaining ones we have to take our coastal vessels to trans-ship them and bring them to Apapa, Tin can Island, Calabar, Port Harcourt and Warri"
"Most of these vessels are owned by foreigners with Nigerians only acting as agents, so I throw this ball to this inauguration to do something about it. If you cannot bring on a vessel of 30, 000 dwt, at least you can bring in 15, 0000mt dwt so that we can sail them into Warri, Calabar and Port Harcourt" he said.
Also speaking at the inauguration, NIMASA Director General, Dakuku Peterside who was represented by Executive Director Maritime Labour and Cabotage Services, Gambo Ahmed said that the agency is working hard to ensure disbursement of the Cabotage Vessels Finance Fund (CVFF) to the SOAN members.
While acknowledging that SOAN under its President, Engineer Greg Ogbeifun is in good hands, Peterside said that "when you see shipowners like these, the first thing that comes to your mind is CVFF, we at NIMASA have received knocks from so many corners, the view outside is that NIMASA is not doing much, but inside we are doing everything possible to make it work", he said.
On her part, Managing Director of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) Hadiza Bala Usman represented by General Manager Marine and Operations in the Western port; Capt Iheanacho Ebubeogu, expressed her strong faith in SOAN members to compete favourably with foreigners taking over the business.
She noted that the infrastructures currently at the ports cannot accommodate all kinds of vessels.
Delivering a goodwill message from the Nigerian Shippers Council, a director at the Council, Chief Carjetan Agu acknowledged that during Ogbeifun's first tenure, he performed well and that the Shippers Council hope that in this second tenure he would surpass these achievements.
"We in the council remain committed to support any programme that SOAN will embark upon to improve activities in the maritime sector" he promised.
In his own contribution, the Head of Shipping Division, NLNG, Mr. Temilola Okesanjo admonished the SOAN members to keep running the good race, based on international best practices.
He charged members of the association not to depend on NIMASA disbursement the CVFF before growing their businesses, but rather, they should approach other stakeholders who are willing to invest in their business for profit sake.
Okesanjo drew a glowing example from the NLNG,which started with a fleet of four ships at inception, because the founding fathers would not sell FOB, but CIF; and has since grown the fleet to 13 ships.
President of SOAN, Engineer Greg Ogbeifun assured that the new executives will continue to encourage strategic engagements with relevant stakeholders to bring about harmonisation and growth of the sector.
He said that one of the key projects of the association is the actualisation of the crude oil tanker fleet in collaboration with the NNPC, as well as working with NIMASA to actualise the CVFF disbursement.
"Too this end, some members of the association who have signified interest have formerly applied to NIMASA for this fund and we are anxiously awaiting the disbursement to enable us grow capacity" he said
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