Investors wait to move in if full deregulation of oil sector comes fast

Investors, local and foreign, are said to be waiting on the wings to move into Nigeria’s downstream oil sector as soon as full deregulation or liberalisation is introduced, an investment group known as Rivers Entrepreneurs and Investors Forum (REIF) has said.

Also, modular refineries are one of the fastest options to creating over 500,000 jobs around Nigeria and solve the fuel crisis.

REIF cuts across foreign and local investors with strong connections all over the world as well as trading groups in markets in the state.

The president and spokesman, Ibifiri Bobmanuel, the man behind the pressure to locate Nigeria’s first dry dock project in Rivers State, told BusinessDay in an exclusive interview, “Nigeria is overdue for liberalisation.

“We have incessant fuel scarcity and it is taking us this while to realise what we ought to be doing. We should bring back the oil value chain to Nigeria. We do speculation and drilling in Nigeria and do processing outside. By that, we cede over 70 per cent of the oil economy to others”.

Saying it is in processing that jobs and activities were created, the entrepreneur said almost the entire value of the nation’s natural endowment was being taken outside. “We in REIF feel that it is high time the government pulled the plug and changed all of this. It is in doing this that we the investors will have an opportunity to play in the real sector. When they do that, you find that the price on its own will come down, just like in diesel. Government has no business fixing the price of oil or fuel”, he said.

As long as government sets prices, he said, no serious minded investor or bank would invest in it. “The life of the product is not in your hands but in the hands of policy makers. They say investors are shy. He will only invest where there is certainty of profit.”

The REIF boss said the body language of the economy is tilted towards liberalisation/deregulation. “Investors out there are just waiting to move in with huge funds as soon as this is done. They are just waiting for it to happen. You will see huge inflow of investments into Nigeria”, he said.

“This policy was due about five years ago but Nigerians were not ready for it then. Now is the right time to act. Government should take the bull by the horn. Governance requires decision and you must take it,” he said.

He said Nigeria was simply subsidising the economy of the whole of West Africa by modulating the prices of petroleum products, saying Nigeria did not have the right border security to even police the policy.

On modular refineries, he said 10,000 metric tons of modular refineries would employ over 30,000 persons. “Imagine how many of this kind you have all over Nigeria and the impact on jobs and revenue. We need to begin to act right, the investor said.

He said Labour unions would not be a problem in full deregulation, saying the policy would rather create more jobs, adding that labour should be in a position to support the policy because workers would benefit more by establishing more refineries that would create more jobs and labour does not like downsizing but the policy would rather create more jobs.