The Federal Government’s Naira-for-crude panel is expected to reconvene on Monday to deliberate on the continuation of the crude sales deal with Dangote Refinery amid ongoing uncertainty over petroleum product prices.
Reliable sources in the Ministries of Petroleum Resources and Finance, who preferred anonymity, made this known on Thursday.
This comes after Dangote Refinery on Wednesday announced the suspension of its petroleum products sales in Naira.
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Dangote Refinery’s decision to suspend petrol product sales in Naira indicated that there is a stalemate in discussion between the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and the Dangote Refinery over the continuation of the Naira-for-crude sale contract.
However, official sources familiar with the matter told Daily Post that the scheme may continue.
It was confirmed that NNPCL faced a crude availability crisis following the fact that the state-owned firm had pre-sold large volumes to foreign creditors under its crude-backed loans.
“The scheme won’t end. The challenging point is the issue of crude availability, with NNPC claiming it has pre-sold large volumes of crude.
“The committee agreed to reconvene on Monday (next week) to review options that the Nigeria Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission has been mandated to come up with. The committee is trying to dimension solution options,” the official stated.
Recall that the committee last week met at the Ministry of Finance Headquarters in Abuja to assess developments and reaffirm commitments to the naira-for-crude policy framework.
The meeting had in attendance the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun (who joined virtually); the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Dr. Zacch Adedeji; the Chief Financial Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company; the Executive Commissioner of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (who also joined virtually); and other stakeholders.
