• Oil marketers urge Dangote refinery to adopt inclusive distribution

Federal Government’s planned sale of its Joint Venture (JV) stakes is unsettling the oil and gas industry, as the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) have kicked against the move.

The Nigerian government is considering the sale of its stakes in the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and various oil and gas Joint Ventures (JVs).

Speaking on the issue yesterday in Abuja, both PENGASSAN President, Festus Osifo, and his NUPENG counterpart, William Akporeha, said the move would not only bankrupt the country in the near future, but may push the naira beyond N5,000 to one United States dollar.

This comes as NUPENG dissociates itself from the alleged N50,000 per truck levy on petrol tankers at the Dangote Refinery.

Osifo said: “The Federal Government intends to sell its Joint Venture stakes in oil companies. In the oil companies such as Oando, Renaissance, Shell and other companies. The money realised from these operations belongs to the federated and not the Federal Government only. If the previous government had sold all these JVs before now, where would this government get the money to run its affairs? Both PENGASSAN and NUPENG say no to this plan.”

According to Osifo, the government wants to reduce its stake in assets by selling between 30 and 35 per cent.

Osifo warned that if the plan goes through, the NNPCL may likely be bankrupt in the next few years, saying the casualties would not only be Nigeria as a country, but also the critical stakeholders, including the workers.

The oil workers also expressed their displeasure over the plans of the Federal Government to appoint the Federal Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI) as the sole owner of the National Nigerian Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) through a revision of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).

At present, the NNPCL is jointly owned by the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Petroleum Resources.

Sources say the thinking behind the government’s plan is to centralise revenue collection for the benefit of the federation.

But the oil workers insisted that the plan to rejig the PIA barely four years after its passage into law was a wrong move.

Meanwhile, Oil marketers have urged Dangote Refinery to adopt an inclusive distribution approach after the company rolled out CNG-powered delivery trucks, saying the new fleet alone cannot guarantee nationwide supply.

Speaking on Channels Television’s programme, The Morning Brief, the National President of the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria, Billy Gillis-Harry, welcomed Dangote’s investment, but said it must work alongside existing downstream infrastructure.

The Dangote Refinery delivery model had raised concern among marketers that it could sideline depot owners and disrupt the decades-old distribution network that served smaller towns and remote stations.

Gillis-Harry said PETROAN members would continue to load product from Dangote but wanted formal negotiations and guarantees that retailers would retain access to depots across the country.