The Senior special assistant to the President on Niger Delta affairs senator Ita Enang accepts that the president is planning to legalized modular refineries in the country, he made this know at the news agency of Nigeria forum on Thursday the 9th of April, in Abuja Nigeria's capital. He said that his office over a period of time had engaged some illegal artisanal refineries in the Niger Delta region and had seen the need to legalize their operations.
According to voice of Nigeria he said "engaging the artisanal refiners would go along way to save cost for the country and boost revenue generation, they might not produce much to feed Nigeria and neighbouring countries, but there are refineries in neighbouring countries we take our crude oil to them for refining" he argues that there will be no need to pay import or export port authorities charges unless we transport refine products out for sale, he added
“By so doing, you will be improving their capacity and you will bring down the cost of refined petroleum products drastically. So, there will be no element of subsidy in
Nigeria, NNPC, has vessels with products yet to be sold which were incurring costs, we are not sure that by the time the world recovers from COVID-19, that all the countries of the world will immediately need enough oil to bring up the price, even if it is artificially raised for the purpose of sustaining the economies of the big countries"
He said according to the Group Managing Director of NNPC we have not found market for our vessels on the high sea, and we are paying demurrage for each day that the vessels are in the waters, whether we sell our crude oil or not, it is a charter agreement, unless we offload or evacuate our goods from the vessels, we are still paying for hiring the vessels.
The cost of hiring the vessels will sometimes even be more than the cost of the product on the vessels, so we return a zero or even a negative profit.
"Therefore, Nigeria and Nigerians have to consider this and come to an agreement to boost local refining" he assures Nigerians there will be continues engagement with all the stakeholders and the legislature to seek understanding for all.
