Drums of oil

By Ngozi Onyeakusi—- Fuel marketers and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, on Tuesday, kicked against a provision in the Senate version of the Petroleum Industry Bill that allowed only active refinery licence holders to import petroleum products into the country. Subsection (8) of section 317 of the bill says the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority shall apply the backward integration policy in the downstream petroleum sector to encourage investment in local refining. “To support this, licence to import any product shortfalls shall be assigned only to companies with active local refining licences. Import volume to be allocated between participants based on their respective production in the preceding quarter,” it adds. The Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria and the Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria noted in a joint statement that the clause restricted the licence to import all refined products into the country to a very small number of local refiners. They said, “This restriction extends to products that have long been deregulated such as diesel, kerosene (household kerosene and aviation turbine kerosene), Liquefied Petroleum Gas and base oils. “As industry stakeholders and professionals with heavy investments in the downstream sector, we welcome the entry and participation of local refineries.