Abuja — From October 1, only licensed blenders would be allowed to import base oil into the country, while all bulk sale of lubricants at undesignated retail outlets across the country is to cease from January 1, 2010.

Minister of Petroleum Resources, Dr. Rilwanu Lukman, said this at a meeting with stakeholders in production and marketing of lubricants, in line with the Federal Government's objective of sanitising operations of the downstream sector of the oil and gas industry.

Lukman directed owners of lubricant blending plants to commence upgrade of their facilities, to improve product quality and capacity utilisation.

Pursuant to this directive, the Petroleum Product Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), Department of Petroleum Resources(DPR) and the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) have been mandated to collaborate with all other relevant stakeholders involved in the lubricant market and distribution, to design a model kiosk and put in place a programme of action for relocation of sellers of lubricants to authorised locations.

A statement from Deputy Director, Press, in the ministry, Florence Bolokor-Mohammed, said in making this policy, government was guided by the need to protect its citizens and the environment, because of the health and safety hazards caused by the unwholesome disposing of used lubricants in open spaces.

This, it said, is in addition to the need to check the sharp practices of adulteration of vegetable oil with base oil and general use of substandard lubricant with its attendant challenges to human, plants and machinery.

Nigeria has an installed production capacity of 104,915,990 litres shared among 20 functional plants between the major oil marketers and independent marketers with a market turn-over in excess of N900billion as at 2008, and a profit margin of between N30 and N40billion.

The country's lubricant combined production capacity can effectively satisfy the domestic market and meet the lubricant requirement for the West Africa sub region. Despite this, the country remains the world's largest importer of base oil, because Kaduna Refinery, which is the only plant that produces base oil for production of lubricant had been out of production since 1995.

Source: AllAfrica.com