The President of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), Festus Osifo, on Friday, September 27, called on the Federal Government to urgently fix the four national refineries and divest the majority share in the facilities to the private sector.
Addressing the media at the official presentation of the PENGASSAN communique issued arising from its 2024 PENGASSAN Energy and Labour Summit, to the media in Lagos, Osifo said the country refineries should be modelled after the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) model, which appears to have been successful.
“Ramping up efforts to make the Nation’s four refineries work; once operational, the government should divest majority shareholdings and own at most 49 percent of the shareholding in the four refineries. Core investors will be brought in to take the 51 percent as applicable in NLNG,” he admonished.
Osifo regretted that the inter-land petroleum depots in six geopolitical zones of the country are dilapidated and stressed the need for the government to get the depots fixed in collaboration with the private sector to ensure the smooth distribution of petroleum products and enhance the national strategic reserve.
PENGASSAN also called for the expansion of pipelines that could be used in the delivery of refined petroleum products across the length and breadth of the country as this would reduce the pressure put on the roads by trucks carrying petroleum products.
According to PENGASSAN, the group also recommended digital intervention to curtail crude oil theft; re-engineer security architecture; and ensure ease of doing business, by reducing bureaucracies or complex regulations that make the gas investment unattractive to investors, among others.
Osifo said very severe punishment should be meted out to persons involved in crude oil theft to serve as a deterrent to others.
Urging the government to implement the provision for host communities in the Petroleum Industry Act, he said the summit was worried that three years after the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021, the section of the act had not been implemented at all. The Act stipulated that three percent of the operational revenue of the oil companies should be contributed to the host community fund.
He enjoined the government to also create a business-friendly environment by creating incentives for more investors to tap into the nation’s abundant gas resources.
In the upstream, it suggested an amendment of the PIA 2021 to include the divestment framework, noting that the previous divestments are not yielding results as the companies lack the financial capacity to sustain and expand the divested oil wells.
The group also enjoined the Nigerian energy sector to leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) advancement to improve productivity and sustainability and tackle oil theft and smuggling.
PENGASSAN also called on the Federal Government to increase its stake in Dangote refinery to 45 percent from the present 7.2 percent to foster product availability to meet local demands, adding that this would ensure further energy assurance and security for the citizens.
