To maintain a uniform pump price for petroleum products across the country, especially in the northern parts, the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) urged the Dangote Petroleum Refinery Company at the weekend to deliver fuel directly to more states.
The association’s National Publicity Secretary and Public Relations Officer, Chief Chinedu Ukadike, made the appeal in a voice note released to select reporters in Abuja.
This is just as the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) urged the federal government to sustain efforts to implement reforms and incentives to stimulate investment in the country’s oil and gas industry.
Ukadike said: “We want to commend the management of Dangote Refinery for making this possible, and we are also appealing to them to extend it further to other states, especially those in the northern areas, so that petroleum products will be bought uniformly,” he said.
According to him, “This will reduce the hardship Nigeria is facing.”
The spokesman commended the refinery for extending its free petroleum product distribution scheme to Imo, Anambra and other states, describing the gesture as one that would ease the hardship faced by independent marketers.
Ukadike gave the commendation while speaking on the impact of the initiative, which he said was aimed at ensuring petroleum products reach final consumers at more affordable prices.
“This gesture, if sustained, will be able to alleviate the sufferings of independent marketers,” Ukadike said. “There has been the issue of financial hold-up, whereby marketers pay for products and are not loaded for days and weeks, and they suffer unnecessary hardship bringing the product down.”
He said the Dangote Refinery had made the process significantly easier for marketers, adding that many were now seeing quicker returns on their investments.
According to Ukadike, the initiative had also reduced the risks associated with product haulage, since marketers now have petroleum products delivered closer to their point of need. He noted that this development was already reflected in retail pump prices.
Ukadike commended the management of Dangote Refinery for the initiative and appealed for it to be extended to more states, particularly in the northern part of the country, to ensure uniform pricing of petroleum products nationwide.
PENGASSAN Pushes for Consolidation of Reforms in Oil, Gas Industry
Meanwhile, PENGASSAN has urged the federal government to sustain efforts to implement reforms and incentives to stimulate investment in the country’s oil and gas industry.
The union, in a communique issued at the end of its 5th PENGASSAN Energy and Labour Summit held in Abuja, called for an integrated national approach to gas development encompassing upstream supply, processing facilities, pipelines, storage, LNG, LPG and CNG infrastructure, alongside commercially sustainable gas pricing, bankable offtake arrangements and creditworthy customers.
In the communique jointly signed by PENGASSAN president Comrade Festus Osifo and General Secretary, Comrade Jerry Amah, the union urged the government and regulators to consolidate recent reforms and incentives that have stimulated renewed investment and Final Investment Decisions, and to ensure that Nigeria remains internationally competitive for capital.
PENGASSAN called for an integrated national approach to gas development encompassing upstream supply, processing facilities, pipelines, storage, LNG, LPG and CNG infrastructure.
It further urged the accelerated utilisation of gas for power generation, manufacturing, transportation, fertiliser production, petrochemicals, and domestic cooking, while reducing routine flaring and methane emissions and converting otherwise wasted gas into economic value.
On domestic refining and value addition, PENGASSAN urged the federal government to sustain policies and investments to expand Nigeria’s domestic refining capacity and reduce the economic inefficiency of exporting crude oil while importing significant volumes of refined petroleum products.
It emphasised the need to protect refineries (such as the Dangote Refinery, the Waltersmith Refinery, and others) within Nigeria’s jurisdiction.
According to PENGASSAN, Nigeria should progressively retain more value from its petroleum resources through domestic refining, petrochemicals, gas processing, and other value-adding activities that generate employment, conserve foreign exchange, and stimulate industrial growth.
On the issue of protection of workers’ rights and industrial harmony, PENGASSAN affirmed that capital and labour are complementary rather than competing interests.
It further called for stronger enforcement of expatriate quota requirements to ensure that foreign expertise is deployed principally where genuine skills gaps exist and is accompanied by measurable knowledge transfer, understudy arrangements and succession plans for qualified Nigerians.
The summit further reaffirmed that host communities must be genuine partners in petroleum development and called for effective implementation of the Host Communities Development Trust framework under the PIA.
Onyebuchi Ezigbo and Peter Uzoho
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