As part of measures to ensure complete transparency and effectiveness in the operations and management of the nation’s downstream oil and gas sector, the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulation Agency (PPPRA) and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), regulators of Nigeria’s oil and gas sector, are set to stem petroleum products round- tripping by petroleum products' importers and marketers.
PPPRA is to delist importers and sanction tank farm owners at the port who connive with each other and port officials to round-trip by discharging less quantity of the imported petroleum products at the jetties. The agency said it would take a step further to discourage importers who round-trip offshore Cotonou and move down to Nigeria.
The Director of DPR, Osten Olorunsola, has directed marketers to dismantle back-loading pumps at their depots to prevent petroleum products round-tripping.
LEADERSHIP learnt that importers and marketers collude with port officials and allow some vessels carrying imported petroleum products to double berth. As a result billions of naira are lost annually to this illicit deal.
DPR and PPPRA officials said that both agencies were putting several other measures in place to ensure transparency in the downstream petroleum sector which include full deployment of trucking implementation policy: digitalisation of? tank farms and retail outlets, operational data and migration of licence administration to electronic processing platform through the National Data Repository (NDR).
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