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Permanent solution to fuel
problem
S.U. NWOGU
THERE
is no doubt that deregulation of down stream of petroleum industry has made
available motor fuel for the delight of every Nigerian. Unfortunately this joy
becomes short-lived due to constant increase in the cost of imported fuel
products, high inflation rate due to low purchasing power of the naira and
constant threat of industrial strike by labour congress. What the labour should
do is to always negotiate with the federal government. The government must
understand that the best way to deal with labour congress is not to surpress
them for they represent the voice of the masses. Any law that will make them
irrelevant will make the world think that we are not practising true democracy.
So let the government be careful not to proscribe the labour congress. When
there is no organised labour, any mass agitation in Nigeria will be
uncontrollable and catastrophic especially with the presence of area boys,
cultists, ethnic militia, underworld and other disgruntled members of the
society who do not love the police and the government.
What the federal government
should do now is to enact laws to build at least ten new petroleum refineries in
Nigeria to stop massive importation of refined petroleum products which drains
our foreign exchange and creates inflation in the economy.
The federal government should
take the lead and build the first four medium size (150,000 barrels per day) oil
refineries and sell to private investors as soon as they are completed and
commissioned. The government should use 325 billion naira out of the excess
amount realised from the sale of crude oil from January to August 2004 to build
these refineries. They should be sold on ‘CASH and CARRY’ basis to anxious
private investors, including state governments. Many of the investors who have
collected licence to build oil refineries will take a long time to start because
of the huge amount of money and other logistics involved. Once the first four
new plants are built and sold, the federal government should embark, on building
another six oil refineries with the money realised from the sale of the first
four new oil refineries. One of these new oil refineries should be designated
for petrol-chemical extraction of industrial raw materials such as plastics,
petroleum solvents and aviation fuels.
One of the other plants should be
designed to produced more diesel and kerosene than petrol at cheaper price for
domestic consumption. Most of the refineries should produce petroleum products
both for internal consumption and for export to other African countries and
beyond. The NNPC should buy the refinery designed to produce diesel and kerosene
for the masses at reasonable cost.
The federal government should
build catalytic reforming plants using Platinum catalysts (platforming). This
plant is most suitable for Nigerian crude oil which is mainly naphthenic and
devoid of sulphur. Nigerian crude oil is easy to refine to obtain high octane
number super fuel by simple process of catalytic dehydrogenation. It does not
require desulphurisation plant and this also is an asset to any investor.
The platforming plant has daily
routine maintenance culture where heat exchangers, condensers, pumps and
fractionating columns etc are bipassed and exchanged for new ones while the old
ones are repaired by engineers and other scientists on daily basis.
It is a shame that a country like
Nigeria should continue to import refined petroleum products. We will realise
the full benefit from our crude oil by building new oil refineries. By refining
our oil, we will make more money, gain more foreign exchange, reduce poverty,
unemployment and armed robbery. We should see less crude and more refined
petroleum products, to realise maximum gain from our petroleum sector of the
economy. This will put a final stop to fuel problem in Nigeria apart from
pipeline vandalisation and oil bunkering which the government is tackling now.
It will take a maximum of six to
twelve months to complete the building of one new oil refinery if the fund is
available. It will take about one to two years to recover the investment from
the date it becomes operational. There is surplus raw materials i.e crude oil in
Nigeria: no shipping, no payment of import duty except the cost of crude fixed
by the federal government. There are many jobless engineers and other scientists
to run the plants and to maintain them on daily basis. This is an opportunity
for our billionaires to invest on profitable ventures in Nigeria. When any of
them goes to Abuja to rule, he can comfortably declare his asset without fear or
favour for one of his huge investment is in Nigeria.
Any reasonable Nigerian who loves
this country and wants rapid economic emancipation for this nation should
support the federal government on her present economic reforms. The only problem
with these reforms is that they create very high rate of inflation due to
massive importation of refined petroleum products. As a result, life becomes
very difficult for an average Nigerian due to high cost of food, transportation
and of industrial raw materials. The situation can be corrected by building new
oil refineries to put an end to massive importation of fuel products. I have
every hope that President Olusegun Obasanjo will correct these anomalies by
building new oil refineries for us before the end of his second four-year team.
He is an action president and I
wish him luck and God’s guidance in all his deliberations; forward ever and
backward never; think well and do the right thing always for this great nation
of ours.
The writer of this article did
university research in "Petroleum Refining" at S.A.R.O.M refinery in
Ravena, Italy, under the supervision of Professor Neri of the Department of
Chemical Engineering at the University of Bulgaria, Italy.
The single refinery where he
worked processes 500,000 barrels of crude oil per day and it is bigger than all
the four old refineries in Nigeria put together. They depend on importation of
crude oil from Middle East, Venezuela, Libya, etc, and yet they make profit.
This writer also studied fuel
Technology at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of
Portsmouth, England. He is a chartered engineer and an industrial chemist. He
worked at FIIRO, Oshodi, Lagos and in private sector.
• Dr. Nwogu lives in Ikeja, Lagos.
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