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Nigeria: Country Loses N3.9 Billion Monthly to Foreign Oil Tankers |
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Thursday, 04 February 2010 |
 Nigerian shippers have decried the use of foreign ships in shuttling petroleum cargoes from mother vessels to the offtake jetties in the country, lamenting that the practice deprives the country over N130m million daily.
The revenue losses, according to local shippers, amount to N3.9 billion
monthly with the massive importation of products by the Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and other players that have been
licensed to collaborate in meeting domestic demands.
Representative of the shippers at the recent forum for stakeholders in
the nation's downstream petroleum industry, Captain Adebayo Labinjo,
said the practice of chattering foreign vessels to lighter mother
petroleum import vessels also violated the Cabotage Act in the maritime
sector.
According to Captain Labinjo, who is the Chairman of Indigenous
Shippers Association of Nigeria (ISAN), Nigerian shippers operate
vessels of higher standards than those routinely patronized by Nigerian
petroleum importers.
He lamented that the foreign vessels so patronized do not add values in the domestic economy.
The association called on government to strictly enforce the Cabotage
Act in the downstream petroleum industry to ensure that all available
shipping capacity in the country is patronized before consideration is
given to foreign vessels.
The local maritime operators criticized the petroleum industry for
violating the Cabotage Act while still canvassing for the Local Content
Act that would prioritize patronage to local oil firms over foreign
competitors.
According to Captain Labinjo, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
(NNPC) which imports the bulk of products used in the country should
lead the way in policy implementation in petroleum imports by ensuring
use of local cargo transfer fleets as required by law.
He made it clear that continued violation of the Cabotage Act by the
NNPC has become a reference point for other local and foreign port
users that insist on using foreign vessels for lightering mother
vessels to the jetties.
Business Champion reports large import vessels that are too huge to
berth at the nation's quays are offloaded by use of smaller daughter
vessels that shuttle between the mother vessels and discharge
facilities to avoid incidents.
The shippers' spokesman stated that the lightering of the mother
vessels would have been exclusive business of the local ship owners if
NNPC obeyed the Cabotage Law and use the money paid to offshore
shippers in growing capacity in the domestic maritime sector.
According to him, the nation was wasting ample opportunities to use
business opportunities created in the petroleum industry to grow other
sectors of the economy, warning that the opportunities offered by
natural resources in nation building was limited.
He emphasized Nigeria must use its petroleum resources and associated
businesses to build all sectors of her internal economy before the
resource runs out as in the case of Indonesia whose oil production has
plunged below its internal demand.
"Nigeria must use the businesses opportunities offered by its oil
resources to build its sectors before the nation becomes a wreck at the
end of the oil age" he declared at the event.
Source: Daily Champion
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