The kind of intervention of the Central Bank of Nigeria in the Dangote Refinery is currently needed for the completion of modular refineries across the country, the Crude Oil Refinery Owners Association of Nigeria said on Thursday.
CORAN, a registered association of modular and conventional refinery companies in Nigeria, outlined some quick wins to help in the process of getting more local refineries to come on stream, as part of measures to cushion the harsh effect of the removal of subsidy on petrol.
In a statement issued in Abuja by its Secretary, Olusegun Ilori, the association stated that the recommendations would help this administration with the short, mid and long term solutions to the Nigerian energy challenges.
“A critical necessity at this time is for the CBN to create a window of intervention fund such as was given to Dangote to other modular refinery companies to access financial support to complete their projects.
“The problem of guaranteed supply of crude to the refineries with naira payments, guaranteed off-take of the products and removal of bureaucratic bottlenecks from the regulatory bodies are some urgent issues for resolution.
“The present challenge relating to regulatory agencies duplicating licenses and permits, and engaged in conflicting directives, put operators in a confusing state of affairs,” the refineries’ owners stated. The association said additional measures required to get local refineries running were contained in the white paper of the report of the Committees on Establishment of Modular Refinery Intervention Funding and Technical Committee on Crude Oil Domestic Supply Obligation From the Punch
