Refinery Owners Seek FG Intervention, Push for Naira-for-Crude Framework

Nigeria risks exporting its crude, jobs and refining margins while continuing to depend on imported petroleum products, the Crude Oil Refinery Owners Association of Nigeria warned.

In a position paper, CORAN called for urgent presidential intervention and the immediate convening of a Presidential Refining Industry Roundtable. The proposed meeting would bring together refiners, regulators, crude producers, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, financial institutions, infrastructure investors and relevant government ministries.

The association said the roundtable should produce a clear roadmap focused on securing commercially viable crude for local refineries, institutionalising the Naira-for-Crude initiative, establishing domestic crude pricing, unlocking long-term financing and reducing reliance on imports.

CORAN acknowledged that crude supplies to local refineries improved in the second quarter of 2026. But it said physical allocation alone would not ensure the survival or growth of domestic refining. The key issue, it argued, is whether crude can be supplied under terms that reflect transportation costs, crude quality, delivery points, evacuation expenses, financing needs and the distance between refineries and producing assets.

Nigerian refiners often incur additional costs from trucking, barging and pipeline transport, the association said. Its proposed pricing mechanism would account for crude quality, delivery location, avoided international freight and insurance costs, domestic evacuation expenses and reasonable commercial margins for producers.

CORAN also renewed its call to make Naira-for-Crude a permanent policy. “Naira-for-Crude should become an industrialisation policy rather than an episodic intervention,” the association stated. It said buying crude in foreign currency while selling most refined products in naira created a commercial mismatch that could weaken investment in the sector.

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Naira-for-Crude should become an industrialisation policy rather than an episodic intervention.