The Crude Oil Refinery-Owners Association of Nigeria (CORAN), the umbrella body of operators of modular refineries in the country, has flawed the Technical Sub-Committee on the Crude and Refined Product Sales in Naira over the exclusion of their members from the current discussions on the Naira-for-crude deal policy of the government.
The association stated that contrary to claims by the technical committee that local refiners participated in the recent meeting of the naira-for-crude committee, none of its members was invited to the meeting, except the Dangote Petroleum Refinery.
The Publicity Secretary of CORAN, Eche Idoko, during an interview with The Punch newspapers, lamented the exclusion of the association’s members from the deal, describing the exclusion as undesirable for the current drives by the government to boost crude oil production and refined products’ distribution in the country.
It would be recalled that the technical committee, in a statement issued after its recent meeting and signed by the finance ministry’s Director of Information and Public Relations, Mohammed Manga, maintained that the government’s drive to boost the naira through local sales of crude oil and refined petroleum products had recorded remarkable success.
Manga stated that the meeting brought together key stakeholders, including, “the Special Adviser to the President on Energy, Ms Olu Verheijen; senior officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited; local refining operators; and top representatives of regulatory agencies such as the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, and the Nigerian Ports Authority.”
He quoted stakeholders at the meeting as reaffirming their commitment to the effective and seamless execution of the policy, “which remains a critical component of President Bola Tinubu’s broader strategy” to strengthen the naira, enhance energy security, and promote local value addition within the sector.
Debunking the claim, the CORAN’s scribe said that many functional modular refineries’ operators, including those operated by OPAC, Edo Refinery, Walter Smith, Aradel, Duport, and other soon-to-opened facilities, were neither invited to the meeting nor benefitted from the deal.
Idoko expressed disappointment over the exclusion of the modular refineries’ operators from the meeting, describing it as a deliberate attempt to debar indigenous refiners who are critical to the success of the crude supply framework from benefitting from the initiative.
He lamented: “We didn’t get any wind about that meeting, and like we have said, the technical committee had decided to deal exclusively with conversations around the local crude and supply of naira for crude.
“They are yet to include CORAN and modular refineries in the agreement. Only Dangote is still enjoying the benefit and was at the last meeting. None of the other refineries were invited. And the reportage that local refiners attended the meeting is misleading.
“The committee owes the President and Nigerians the duty to act fairly. It is very discouraging, to put it mildly, how those in the modular refining space are being treated. We want to appeal to the government and the committee to expand their reach.”
“We would love to see the fallout after this technical committee meeting to see if it would be extended to include other modular refineries as intended from the beginning of the deal.
“We would want to hope that they expand it to include other refineries. We have OPAC, Edo Refineries, Walter Smith, Aradel, Duport, and the new entrants, which would be ready for operations by December”, Idoko added.
It would be recalled that the Naira-for-crude-oil sale to local refineries policy was announced by the Federal Government on October 1, 2024, to enable the local refiners have access to domestic crude oil supply at a fixed, Naira paid price to boost local refining capacity, and conserve foreign exchange (FX) used for petroleum products imports, reduce pump prices, and improve the contributions of the oil and gas sector to the nation’s GDP, among other benefits.
The implementation of the policy’s initial pilot phase, which ended in March, allowed only Dangote refinery 650,000 barrels per day as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) promised to involve other crude refiners to become beneficiaries in its second phase.
However, on March 10 this year the state-controlled oil company halted the naira-for-crude deal until 2030, based on its obligations to creditors on the forward sale of crude oil for repayment pacts with them.
Following face-offs between Dangote Refinery and NNPCL over the Naira-for-crude oil deal, the Federal Government stated on April 9 this year that the Naira-for-crude oil deal would continue after the first phase, which ended on March 31.
