Oil marketers want NIMASA, NPA to accept Naira for ports transactions

The Nigerian Oil Marketers Association has urged the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) to obey the federal government‘s directive on Naira transactions for port charges.

This is contained in a statement issued by Vice President II, Depots and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria (DAPPMAN) Mahmood Tukur.

The federal government, through its downstream regulator, and based on the agreement reached with the interested parties, mandated that port charges be collected in Naira. The directives were contained in a statement issued in November 2021 and signed by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited , the Nigerian Petroleum Marketers Association and DAPPMAN. Tukur claimed that the agencies had not yet complied with the directives and continued to charge fees in dollars.

“The government instructed these agencies to charge vendors in Naira from now on, but that had not been implemented. That is a great challenge The price of the dollar is practically driven by demand, if there is no supply obviously the price will go up. So every time a ship needs to dock, we have to pay port charges in dollars. But we are saying that you can pay in Naira. That is a way to remove the demand (for dollars) from the market and will cool the Forex effects. If these products are consumed locally and are destined for local ports, why do ANP and NIMASA charge in dollars? They should just implement a given directive, and we can assure that this will also reduce the price of petroleum products,” Tukur said.

The statement also quoted DAPPMAN President Winifred Akpani as saying that the FOREX conundrum was affecting oil traders. He noted that to charter a ship that could carry 20,000 metric tons of PMS within Nigeria for 10 days, the freight costs are expressed in dollars.

“That works out to around N220 million at the official FOREX rate of N440, and a whopping N440 million for oil sellers who have to get FOREX on the parallel market to N880.”