Fuel Marketers Express Worry As Banks Move To Recover N350bn Debt

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Banks and other lenders have begun a recovery programme to recoup loans and debt from the downstream sector of the oil industry, a move that has set jitters down the spines of marketers and importers of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), otherwise known as petrol.

While the debts differ from bank to bank and from one marketing company to another, a banker source told New Telegraph that the cumulative loan and debts for recovery are over N350 billion.

New Telegraph gath-ered at weekend that some banks have conveyed the recovery plans to marketers, while others have begun the compilation of the collateral that are likely to be confiscated from the marketers as their plan B in the recovery process.

The major marketers and depot owners also confirmed that the lenders are on their neck for loans and accumulated debts from subsidy payment, which has remained unpaid by the Federal Government.

Executive Secretary of the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN), Thomas Olawore, confirmed this on the sideline of a conference in Lagos. He disclosed that part of the debts they owe banks are still with the government in form of foreign exchange differential and taxes on subsidy debts of 2014 and 2015. He said that the government needs to pay the debts to help importers fulfill their debt obligations to banks and other lenders.

But the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, had said that the Federal Government had fully paid the N48.2 billion outstanding subsidy arrears owed oil marketers in 2015.

She said that oil marketers without tax liabilities were paid in full, while oil marketers with net subsidy claims and Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) liabilities were paid net claim after deduction of tax liabilities.

“Oil marketers that were indebted to FIRS and the seven oil marketers that are indebted to the Asset Management Company (AMCON) were not paid until they settled their debts with the two agencies,” Adeosun said.

Olawore, however, renewed demand for the government to pay foreign exchange differential and taxes on subsidy debts of 2014 and 2015. The government, he said, needed to pay the debts to help importers fulfill their obligations to banks and other lenders.

“As we speak, we are being owed backlog of foreign exchange differential as well as taxes on subsidy regime of 2014 and 2015,” Olawore had said at a panel session christened, “Attracting Investments in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector,” attended by investors. Olawore, however, declined inquiry by this newspaper to know how much the government owes the marketers, but confirmed that the banks were pressuring marketers to pay their debts.

Meanwhile, fuel loading in Apapa, Lagos hub of private depots and loading gantries in Nigeria, has touched the lowest ebb. Investigation showed that buyers’ apathy has reduced fuel consumption by over 50 per cent.

While an average of 350 tankers were, according to claims by marketers, being loaded at the private depots daily, checks by this newspaper showed that the number had reduced to about 150 trucks daily. Big private depots such as Capital Oil, NIPCO, Folawiyo, Aiteo, Integrated oil and MRS were the worse hit by the buyers’ apathy.

Loadings at these depots have crashed by over 50 per cent starting from May 1, when the Federal Government removed subsidy on fuel. One of depots belonging to NIPCO Plc., which, according to New Telegraph’s checks, loads about 120 trucks daily before, now loads between 50 and 60 trucks. This depot, despite the over 50 per cent dip in loading, still does better than many depots.

“Depot owners now labour hard to get trucks loaded,” a management staff of one of the big private depots said after his anonymity was guaranteed. This bearish sale, he continued, started from filling stations and other retail outlets.

“Unlike before, filling stations that were selling between two and three truck-loads of fuel hardly sell one truck now. “In fact, I want anyone to show me any station that sells one truck in a day nowadays. Nobody has been able to. No mega filling station finishes one truckload in a day in Lagos. The problem is that people are not buying fuel again,” he lamented.