TheCable

Emadeb Energy Services Limited says it has imported about 27 million litres of petrol into the country, making it the first private company to do so in the post-subsidy regime.

Speaking at the company’s jetty in Lagos on Wednesday, Adebowale Olujimi, Emadeb’s chief executive officer, said the product arrived in a cargo valued at over $17 million.

Prior to the development, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited was the sole importer of petrol in the country.

Olujimi explained that the decision to import the goods was motivated by the necessity to strategically position the company to capitalise on the potential made possible by the new marketing regime.

“The value of this cargo here, you cannot find it in the market just like that. It is over $17 million and you can’t in any way, with what the FX is today. Today, we have imported 27 million litres of PMS, but local refining is the way forward for us in this country,” he said.

“We want to be one of the early comers into this game. In conjunction with some of our trading partners, we decided to source for the licences and that is what has brought us here today.

“Petrol importation is not a sustainable way for a country to run. From what we saw yesterday when PMS price rose to over N600 per litre, it is an indication that the dynamics of the business is a tough one. It requires huge US dollars to bring in this. The way forward is for local refineries to be revived,” he said.

Farouk Ahmed, chief executive officer (CEO) of the NMDPRA, said the development was significant because the downstream industry has been deregulated.

Represented by Sadiq Bashir, NMDPRA’s executive director of corporate services and administration, Ahmed said Emadeb had shown a business model that could be successfully applied in the country.

“The significance of this is the fact that deregulation has been embraced and subsidy removal is a thing of the past. Not only that, it showed that working together as stakeholders in the industry, we can actually diversify the supply of this very important source of energy for the country,” he said.

“Actually, the regulation is not just about pricing, it is about opening up the market, and what we are doing in NMDPRA is ensuring that we guarantee supply by licensing people to import the product where necessary or in the case of licensing refining companies in the downstream to make sure this product is produced in the country.”

NMDPRA had said over 56 companies had applied for import licences to bring petrol into the country.