The Crude Oil Refinery Owners Association of Nigeria has called for urgent intervention by President Bola Tinubu to address the structural and commercial difficulties facing domestic refiners. CORAN warned that without appropriate measures, Nigeria could continue exporting crude oil, employment opportunities and refining margins while remaining dependent on imported petroleum products.
In a position paper released at the weekend, the association proposed the immediate establishment of a Presidential Refining Industry Roundtable involving refinery operators, regulators, crude producers, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, financial institutions, infrastructure investors and relevant government ministries. The proposed meeting, it said, should develop a clear roadmap for Nigeria’s refining industry, with particular attention to commercially viable crude supplies, domestic crude pricing, long-term financing and the Naira-for-Crude initiative.
Although CORAN acknowledged an improvement in crude supply to local refineries during the second quarter of 2026, it maintained that physical allocation alone would not ensure the survival or expansion of domestic refining operations. The association said the commercial terms governing the supply of crude were equally important. According to it, those terms should reflect the quality of the crude, delivery locations, transportation and evacuation expenses, financing requirements and the proximity of individual refineries to producing assets.
CORAN noted that domestic refiners often incurred additional expenses from transporting crude by road, barges and pipelines. It said these costs should be considered when determining sustainable prices for crude supplied to local facilities.
It consequently proposed a domestic pricing mechanism that would account for crude quality, delivery points, local evacuation expenses, reasonable margins for producers and the international freight and insurance costs avoided when crude was sold within Nigeria. The association also renewed its demand for the Naira-for-Crude initiative to be fully institutionalised, saying the arrangement was necessary to reduce the foreign exchange risks faced by domestic refiners.
“Naira-for-Crude should become an industrialisation policy rather than an episodic intervention,” CORAN stated.
It argued that requiring refineries to purchase crude in foreign currency while selling most of their refined products in naira created a commercial imbalance that could threaten investments in the industry.CORAN therefore called for a transparent and predictable system through which qualified Nigerian refineries, including modular and emerging facilities, could access domestic crude and settle eligible transactions in naira.
The refinery owners also expressed concern about the continued importation of petroleum products into the country. While accepting that imports might be required to cover genuine supply shortages and maintain product availability, the association said imported products should increasingly function as a temporary mechanism for balancing supply rather than remain the basis of Nigeria’s downstream petroleum market.
According to CORAN, continued dependence on imports would increase pressure on foreign exchange, expose the country to international freight expenses and geopolitical disruptions, and transfer refining margins and employment opportunities outside Nigeria. The association identified expensive and limited long-term financing as another constraint preventing the construction of new refineries and the expansion of existing ones.
To address the challenge, CORAN proposed the establishment of a Refinery Development and Expansion Financing Framework involving commercial banks, development finance institutions, pension funds, infrastructure funds and private investors.
It said the framework should offer longer-term funding, refinancing opportunities, credit guarantees and support against construction risks associated with refinery projects. CORAN also called for greater investment in pipelines, storage terminals, depots, rail transportation and marine evacuation facilities.
The association said Nigeria’s heavy reliance on road transportation for moving crude oil and finished petroleum products was commercially inefficient. It added that the practice increased costs for refinery operators and consumers, contributed to road damage and raised transportation and accident risks. It urged the Federal Government to recognise refining as strategic industrial infrastructure rather than treating it only as another part of the downstream petroleum sector.
According to the association, stronger domestic refining capacity could support employment and investment in engineering, fabrication, transportation, petrochemicals, lubricants, plastics and construction, while helping Nigeria conserve foreign exchange. CORAN said its request for direct presidential engagement was reinforced by recent developments in the United States, where President Donald Trump met executives in the refining and fuel industries to discuss expanding refining capacity and reducing fuel prices.
It maintained that such government engagement should not be viewed as corporate entitlement but as recognition of the importance of refining to economic stability and energy security. The proposed presidential roundtable, CORAN said, should produce measurable timelines for institutionalising Naira-for-Crude, strengthening the Domestic Crude Supply Obligation, creating a domestic crude pricing template and establishing sustainable financing arrangements.
The association also identified commercially viable crude swaps, shared infrastructure, support for refinery expansion and a national plan to position Nigeria as a major African refining centre among the issues requiring attention. It said an appropriate policy framework could support an integrated refining industry comprising large, medium-sized and modular facilities located near crude-producing areas and major centres of consumption.
CORAN maintained that Nigeria could no longer sustain a petroleum industry that exported crude and imported the products refined from it at high economic cost.