10 May 2012, Sweetcrude, ABUJA – Nigeria’s Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Authority (PPPRA) has suspended Swiss-based oil firm, Nimex Petroleum, from its fuel import scheme for failure to provide shipping documents relating to earlier transactions now under scrutiny.
The agency may also suspend another company, Lagos-based Swift Oil for same reason.
Mr. Reginald Stanley, PPPRA’s executive secretary, disclosed the suspension, saying the Swiss company was sanctioned for “failing to provide documents relating to its shuttle vessels, which loaded from the mother vessel, as well as the original documentation on the cumulative load-outs of the mother vessel”.
On his appointment last November, Stanley had vowed to enthrone a regime of transparency in the downstream, warning petroleum marketers “to shape up or ship out of the industry”.
“NIMEX is therefore, suspended from supplying cargoes to Nigerian marketers under the Petroleum Support Fund (PSF) Scheme, pending the provision of the necessary documents,’’ he said.
According to Stanley, “all marketers are hereby warned that with effect from May 3, 2012, all purchases of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) from Messrs NIMEX Petroleum shall not be processed for PSF claims.”
The PPPRA boss said further that the Independent Cargo Inspectors, who superintended the receipt of the products from NIMEX, would also be sanctioned, if found to be culpable.
Stanley pointed out that the sanction would send a powerful signal to all operators that a new regime of transparency and due process in the industry is here to stay.
In a related development, the agency has directed Swift Oil and Gas Ltd, based in Lagos, to provide required documentation on “originals of discharged documents (shore tank certificates), detailed truck-out of the discharges, as well as a comprehensive bank statement detailing lodgments in respect of the sale of the discharges”, failure of which it would also be sanctioned.
Reuters reported that Nimex Petroleum had confirmed that PPPRA had suspended its activities in Nigeria in a letter dated May 3 over missing documentation relating to the delivery of two shipments of between 10,000 and 12,000 tonnes of PMS.
