The Secret Oil Deal

Strange days in the Nigerian Oil industry.

Take a look at this mysterious, opaque deal to swap crude oil for imports of refined fuel.

Aside from the fact that we are committing ourselves to a long-term deal that is self-defeating, as well as being far from an optimal way to run our oil industry (surely I don't have to explain "why" to you), the deal is kind of shady (in the way such deals always are), designed to create grey areas certain people can milk.

Even now the government is going through the motions of pretending to investigate the alleged embezzlement and/or mismanagement of =N=1.2 trillion ($8 billion) related the fuel-price subsidy; the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) are being subjected to forensic audit.

The entire structure of our fuel markets make no sense. The NNPC continues to run up debts to that unproductive class of rent-seekers known as "fuel importers".

It is abnormal that Nigeria, which long ago should have become the major exporter of refined petroleum products to the African market (and the major investor in newly-discovered oil fields in Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Uganda, Chad and elsewhere) is planning on importing refined fuel product from Cote d'Ivoire.