Nigeria’s downstream sector records a yearly income of 56 billion dollars, Mr Abayomi Awobokun, Chief Executive Officer, Enyo Retail and Supply Limited, has said.
Awobokun made this known at an interactive session with journalists on Wednesday in Lagos. He said that the sector could boost the nation’s revenue above the 56 billion dollars annually, if more investment could be encouraged. Awobokun urged the Federal Government to encourage more investments into the downstream sector to unlock business potential in the oil and gas industry. He also urged the government to look inward and ensure that challenges facing the sector were addressed.
The chief executive officer said that lack of good networks of road to the terminal where marketers load products posed serious challenge to the downstream sector. He urged the government to do something about it in order to boost the nation’s revenue drive. Awobokun, on the uniqueness of the budding retail outlets, said that in the next five years, players in the downstream sector would change. He said that many of the players in the sector would end up merging with the growing ones, adding Nigeria could not build a strong downstream without technological innovations and designs.
“That technological innovation is what Enyo has brought into the industry. “We see existing downstream stations already slipping into being too comfortable and forgetting to come up with new ideas. “We are not here to just sell petroleum products to our customers, we also want customers’ satisfaction,” Awobokun said.
He explained that Folawiyo Energy was a major partner in the company, alongside a foreign investor. “Technological driven innovations are already driving profoundly positive changes in almost all facets of our lives,’’ he said. Awobokun explained that Enyo’s service innovations was the first to offer customers what he termed loyalty scheme, being an opportunity to reward its loyal buyers. “We want to use innovations and modern designs to our advantage, to grow business in the downstream sector.
“Enyo doesn’t want to get involved in the business of importing products. We buy from those that import and then sell,” he said. Awobokun listed some of the challenges in the downstream sector which investors and government should look at as negative stigma, supply shortage, customers distrust, congestion and poor road facilities.
Source: Vanguard
