By Onyebuchi Ezigbo
The committee of federal government and the organised labour has recommended a 50 per cent cut on all charges on imported petrol as part of measures to reduce the cost of fuel in the country.
The committee also recommended the adoption of a unified exchange rate for all players and product importers in the downstream petroleum sector.
It further proposed that the federal government should stop the current practice whereby marketers and importers are compelled to pay port charges in foreign currency, suggesting that instead, such payments should be made in Naira.
It pointed out that the existing practice of collecting port charges in Dollars has pushed markers to source foreign exchange from the parallel market for settling bills thereby resulting in high and varying costs.
Business/Economy
The downstream end of Nigeria oil and gas industry has gone through various reforms these past two decades. The last, but on-going is the crude swap and its full support for the 20,000bpd refinery in Niger Republic; as the guaranteed off -taker. The objective is to assist with distribution of petrochemical products in the Northern region. If Nigerian government can play off taker for such a small refinery to boost importation of fuel and other products to the North, surely it can do same to the modular refineries springing up in different parts of the country. Most of all, at 650kbpd, the Dangote refinery is well placed to satisfy the petrochemical needs of the country, while the government prepares Nigeria’s four refineries for 2023. Chris Paul writes