Udengs Eradiri: Refined petrol from Niger Delta creeks are better than imported fuel

Wants government to work with operators like Zamfara

 

Admin l Tuesday, August 23, 2022

 

LAGOS, Nigeria – Commissioner for Youth Development/Advocacy  for Human Development, Dr. Udengs Eradiri has called on the Federal Government to put measures in place that involves home grown solution to production of Premium Motor Spirits, PMS and other by products that comes from refining crude oil.

Eradiri who was speaking on Arise TV said the Niger Delta Youths have the capacity and are already producing petroleum products which he said are better than some of the PMS imported products that have sent many automobiles off the roads.

Udengs said on invitation of the Federal Government, those involved in refinement of crude oil in the Niger Delta demonstrated before government officials in Abuja, the current technology which is now being deployed powered by generators like you have in the conventional refineries and that the products of such refinements were equally exhibited for all to see.

He said what the Niger Delta Youths want is for government to give them the same level playing ground that it has offered those into mining of precious stones  like gold and diamond in Zamfara.

According to him, government would have to work with the youths the way it is involved in Zamfara and that what is needed is for government to create a Freezone in each of the locality where those involved will operate with the NNPC allocating crude oil to the operators, who will then deploy their technology to refine the crude and sell the Premium Motor Spirits, PMS and others like kerosene while the NNPC will buy the products and sell to Nigerians.

Imported PMS now sells from N170 per litres,  Aviation fuel N800 per liter and Diesel about N700 per litere.

Eradiri said the irony is that security forces who invade the creeks do not go with barges that will enable them to cart away crude and return to NNPC storage facility but only end up in destroying the facilities and wasting crude oil they find on site and kill and arrest youths who engage in the production process.

He explained that what the Niger Delta people are asking for is different from the notion of modular refineries canvassed by the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbanjo.

“It is different from modular refineries which require about 50 million dollars to set up, but the locals are able to build facilities with less than N15 million and they are producing fuel, with tankers leaving Nigeria to the west African subregion”, he said.

He explained that the situation is so bad that millions of youths and women are now involved and no longer farm or go for fishing since the environment is already polluted and that it is worsened by the corruption in high places in Nigeria. He said the Niger Delta Youth see vessels that dock in the creeks for months that cart away up to 3 million barrels of crude with official collusion, stressing if that is allowed, then the Niger Delta people who are owners of the resources  are ready for the worst.

He said indigenes of the Niger Delta are equally infuriated that the Late President Shehu Musa Yar’ Adua, who originated the PIA prescribed 10 percent for the owners of the resources so that they can see themselves as owning the process but that it was whittled down to 3 percent.

He said operators of the refineries in the Niger Delta would prefer to pay what they give to the security agencies to government if the process is formalized. He said that in a space of 100 kilometres of pipelines, several  points are ruptured because it has become a means of livelihood to indigenes  of the Niger Delta area even at the cost of their lives.

“I have seen many burnt to death in the cost of refining these products. We don’t need to not wait for OPEC to set standard for us because China will not accept that hence they are where they are today” Eradiri said.

He commended FG for giving contract to monitor oil pipepline to Government Ekpemupolo alias Tompolo and that Tompolo bided like the other five contractors and won because of his knowledge of the terrain and equipment.

“ He is now involving other community leaders in the quest to secure the pipelines”, but that beyond that government has to evolve a home grown solution to the problem refining petroleum products apart from fixing existing refineries.