Olufemi Adewole, the Executive Secretary, Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association, says fixing the nation’s refineries will help address the challenges of accessing foreign exchange by marketers.
In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos, Adewole urged the Federal Government to ensure that the country’s local refineries worked at optimal capacity.
Adewole said: “Making our four refineries work at full capacity remains the only way to address the ongoing foreign exchange challenges in Nigeria.
“When the refineries are working optimally and products refined are sold to marketers locally, it will stimulate the economy.
“This will reduce the high rate of sourcing for foreign exchange by marketers to import petroleum products.
“Government will make more money through crude oil export to bring in dollars into the country.”
Adewole said that for a long time now, marketers had been depending on foreign currency to import petroleum products to meet up with the demand of local fuel consumption.
He said: “As long as we neglected our refineries to refine product overseas, there will be pressure on the need for dollars.
“Foreign exchange is the major challenges affecting importation of kerosene because right now banks are not financing any marketers even to import petrol.
“If marketers have foreign exchange they will import the products but lack of foreign currency hampered the importation of kerosene into the country.”
Adewole urged government to refine more crude oil into petroleum products domestically for local consumption.
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