The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and the Dangote Refinery have set up a special committee to address the operational concerns of the refinery.
The two parties gave the committee a two-week timeline to provide a report that would be implemented to ensure the easy sail of the refinery.
The agreement was reached when Mr Akin Omole, the Managing Director of Dangote Port Operations, on behalf of Dangote Petroleum Refineries and Petrochemicals FZE, paid a courtesy visit to Dr Bashir Jamoh, NIMASA Director-General, on Tuesday in Lagos.
Jamoh nominated the Director, Cabotage and the Director of Internal Audit to be NIMASA’s representatives in the committee.
“The Director Cabotage provides the law and that of Internal Audit will ensure that fees of the agency are received.
“I suggested a joint committee between the agency and the Dangote Refinery for us to sit down and look at issues and where you don’t understand, explanations will be given on the dos and don’ts.
“If there are no objections, I will like us to adopt what I suggested because we are in a democracy, I cannot just sit down because I am a regulator and impose things on you,” he said.
Jamoh said the commencement of the refinery would boost the domestic oil requirement capacity of the country.
He noted that the agency had to be certain of revenue adding that they would not be so selfish, especially with the challenges in the country.
“I have listened attentively on the issue of the Cabotage Act 2003, and we have seen the letter from Dangote Group and we have responded to that point by point.
“Now that you are here, it is good to put our heads together and ensure that we remove the grey areas that will hinder the operations of the refinery.
“Since the commencements of the operations of the refinery, NIMASA did not take any sledgehammer and insisted on the full compliance of the Cabotage Act, our concern is the grey areas and how it can be addressed so that it cannot jeopardise laws of the land.
“Now that you are here as a team, we have a more explicit report on the way and manner this Act can be implemented and utilised,” he said.
Responding, Omole said he was in full support of the idea pushed by Jamoh.
According to Omole, this act will ensure that the refinery is not in breach of the Cabotage Act.
“We talked about business being done in a way that there is no obstruction, no delay.
“In shipping, a day delay is a huge cost, we have an average of over $50,000 demurrage on a ship per day, so we want to be sure that these kinds of delays are not experienced.
“All bottlenecks, and hindrances that will cause the delay will be addressed jointly and collaboratively with our team and NIMASA team,” he said.
He said the strategic importance of Dangote Refinery was not only for Nigeria’s economy but Africa, as a whole.
