Ibi Siddon, is the Managing Director, Union Admiralty Nigeria Limited, a frontline logistic and shipping company. In this interview with SweetCrude’s Godfrey Bivbere, he explained why Nigerian ship owners are unable to engage in mid-stream discharge of petroleum products; the difficulties in insuring indigenous vessels as well as the absence of dry docking facilities in the country and much more. Excerpts:

Why are Nigerian own vessels not partaking in mid-stream discharge?

It is only Nigerian vessels that are up to date in their classes, in their insurance and in their paper works that are allowed to get involved in the shuttling of petroleum products, taking refined products from offshore down to storage facilities onshore.

Some are having difficulties because they are not up to class, the mother vessels may have one or two problem, or because of the roughness of the sea, scratches and the certification of documentation. They will not wait or hold each other hostage but they will depart and the P&I club would be able to settle the issue.

They insist on classed vessel, and that means the master and the crew are up to class and know what they are doing, and therefore minimise disputes between two vessels. So if you are in a class, you know what you are doing, your own vessel has been protected. In case of small scratch, both parties would sign papers and they will disperse; not that one will hold the down for one month; arguing because you are not sure of him. And I think a lot of Nigerians are now updating their vessels

The other problem which ship owners are facing now in the tanker vessels business is that most classes are insisting on having double bottom vessels, and these models have not fully come into effect in our coastal waters but with time that may be another hindrance.

Two issues I need you to clarify;some ship owners claim that most of the Nigerian vessels are actually owned by foreigners but with Nigerian fronts, so the benefits do not trickle down to Nigerians. Secondly, with regard to insurance, the P&I club and so on, some ship owners insist that these clubs refuse to insure them.

I don’t agree with you; why I don’t agree with you is that you are saying that the classes are against you. The classes are not against you, we have more than five standard classes in the world. Are you saying that United Kingdom is against you; United State of Americais against you; Russia is against you, all other parts are against you? No,that is not true. What is there is that you must use a standard, and when you use that standard, then you get to that class, then you will do the normal requirements.

For instance if you are in some class, they will tell you that every two years your vessel has to be checked, your vessel have to go for dry dock, your vessel has to do this or that. Some of them (Nigerians) even buy the vessel when they are in class, the internationally accepted standard. I do not want to mention names but I know somebody that has bought a vessel in that class, and I was trying to educate him all through to go ahead.

I also know another vessel that left the class and later came back like the “African Hyacint” which had some problems and was sold because they could not maintain her. But when the Indians that owned the African Hyacint wanted to sell the vessel, they had to upgrade it to meet the acceptable standard so they can make money because they were not looking at the Nigerian market only. They envisaged that if the Nigerian people don’t buy it, other people will.

So it’s a matter of the Nigerian ship owner not being ready to put the vessel in the needed standard. Some of them buy that vessel in that standard but if you buy the vessel in that standard and you are not able to keep it in that class, then you have yourself to blame.

It is not like the vessel has actually deteriorated; it is just that you do not meet the conditionality and we are having some backwardness. For instance, now in Nigeria, we do not have a very good dry docking facility, so you have to go to Ghana, and the man will look at cost and everything, and he cannot meet up and then decides to forgo the maintenance.

So these are the problems and not that anybody is against them. Nobody is against anybody, but the thing is that the American standard has no problem from wherever you are. How about those that have vessels from Panama, how about those that have vessels from Liberia meeting world standard? I mean some people buy vessels and register them in Nigeria and they meet the world standard.

It’s just about your positioning, you might be good but they will refer you to go dry docking when your ship is due to dry dock, because the law says so. It is just like you riding a car, the standard of that car is that when you run for 5,000 miles, the oil has to be changed, you don’t allow the car to break down before you go and change the oil. That is what the standard is saying.