It was learnt that major and independent oil marketers started receiving their import licences from Thursday at the Abuja headquarters of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency.
Officials of the agency told our correspondent that letters granting import permits were issued to marketers at the PPPRA office and that the oil dealers promised to bring large volumes of fuel into the country provided they access the required amount of foreign exchange needed for such transactions.
According to a senior official of PPPRA who spoke on condition of anonymity, “Some marketers got their licences recently. Before the liberalisation of the downstream sector, it was only the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation that brought in products. Even when the marketers were given 50 per cent, they couldn’t import because of the problems associated with accessing forex. Now that it has been liberalised, I assure you that in a matter of weeks, there will be surplus PMS.
“Why we still see queues is because most of the filling stations depend on NNPC for supply, but now that they have started receiving their import permits, within a week or two, you will see that the whole country will be wet with products and the queues will disappear.”
When asked to state the number of marketers that had received import permits, the official said, “The PPPRA is the agency that issues import licences to marketers and to the best of my knowledge, some of them have been receiving their licenses since Wednesday that the liberalisation regime started.
“Oando, Forte Oil and many others have been given. So at the end of the day, we will now compute the volume of allocation given to all the marketers. Nipco, Total, RainOil and some others were here yesterday (Thursday).”
Although the official could not state the percentage allocation given to the marketers, he stressed that the government was determined to clear the queues and one of the best ways to do that was to liberalise the downstream oil sector by allowing marketers source for forex their own way.
Another official of the agency stated that it was wrong for any marketer to import petrol without getting the required licence, stressing that the liberalisation of the sector does not mean that every marketer can now import products without following the stipulated rules.
The official said, “Despite the fact that they have opened up the market, there are still rules and regulations that must be met. You need to be licensed to import products.”
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