As the world groans under severe energy distortions and economic dislocations, the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria, MOMAN has called for calm and understanding among
Nigerians as the country who is also a member of the global oil cartel – the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC battle its way out of the fuel crisis debacle facing both producing and none oil producing countries at the moment.
In a press statement issued on Wednesday, the Group’s Chairman Olumide Adeosun said all the stakeholders in the Nigerian petroleum industry, which include NNPC, PPMC, NARTO and of course MOMAN were working round the clock to ensure petroleum products availability and pricing were normalized to reduce the level of hardship in the country.
While assuring Nigerians of its commitments at ensuring that activities of petroleum products smugglers which pose serious threats to products availability were curtailed said MOMAN had already prevailed on the Authorities to work out strategies to return the refineries to full operation. Adding that MOMAN was concerned at the current supply framework that has not provided any guarantee for steady and consistent supplies to the country, exacerbated further by the “current state of Government’s finances” and unpredictable international supply shortages.
Taking all these and many more other factors into consideration had therefore recommended that, single supply strategy should be reviewed. It also considered critical the urgent need of setting up, to be done by the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources, a taskforce whose focus will only center around increasing diesel supply through accelerated initiatives to increase local modular capacity. Above all these which it considered crucial to tackle supply and distribution challenges, were emphasis for what it called “gradual price deregulation with targeted palliatives”, defined as good transport network and agricultural subsidies, to the public, besides phased rehabilitation of existing NNPC refineries.
Ghana at the moment is facing a looming fuel shortage as the central bank rations dollars after oil prices surged following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
It was reported that the monthly fuel import bill for the West African country jumped to $450 million in May, from $250 million in January, with the central bank only offering about $100 million a month at its foreign exchange auctions, with licensed bulk distributors finding it difficult to plug the shortfall in the black market, people were reported to have said on the grounds of anonymity.
According to the report, Ghana’s Central Bank was reluctant to spend limited dollars importing fuel, on the excuse of trying to boost its foreign exchange holdings, people were reported to have said. Its reserves at the end of April was reported to have stood at $8.34 billion, down from $9.7 billion at the end of last year, the central bank said.
The country’s weak currency which now goes 22% against one US dollar is not helping, the
report said, adding that this year, the currency has made one of the worst outings among
African currencies tracked by Bloomberg, with the country’s inflation rate jumped to 27.6% in May, the highest level in more than 18 years, as food and transport costs surged.
Oil prices climbed as financial markets recovered from the recent week’s rout, with traders
confident that tight supplies were likely to sustain higher prices even with the contraction of the global economy.
