Taleveras Clarifies Crude Oil Swaps with NNPC

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Taleveras Group yesterday refuted claims by the Nigeria Extractive Industries  Transparency Initiative (NEITI) in its audit report that it under delivered 152,308,878 litres of petroleum products in 2011.

NEITI in its audit report submitted to the National Assembly had accused four oil companies including Taleveras Group of under delivering 500,075,239.3 litres of petroleum products valued at $8 billion.

Senior Trading and Supply Executive of Taleveras Petroleum, Leonard Kwentua, told THISDAY that his company's supply of gasoline under the swap arrangement are ongoing activities and the accounts are reconciled quarterly to determine what was oversupplied or undersupplied.

He noted that the barter arrangement was a major factor responsible for the sustainability of supply and availability of gasoline (petrol) across Nigeria.

According to him, for the swap transaction, there is an underlying security in form of a standby letter of credit in favour of the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC), noting that if a supplier does not deliver the products, the PPMC is in a position to cash the defaulter's Letter of credit and these letters of credit are issued in favour of PPMC by first class banks and must be bank confirmed prior to an off take of the crude, so in essence, no letter of credit (L/C),  no lifting of crude.

"As an example, the NEITI report showing 2011 under delivery of about $52 million in their table, does not reflect the actual sum, as inventory warehousing cost is not applied to this figure. Balance on account of this ongoing term deal is fully secured at all times due to the fact that there is an underlying security, always in place, by way of an active bank-issued letter of credit, which in this instance stood at $200 million, in favour of PPMC during the period stated. As at December 2013, the balance on account showed that Taleveras had over supplied in its delivery obligations, subject to reconciliation with PPMC," he said.

Kwentua warned that international financial institutions are very sensitive to sensational media reports and "most recently these inaccurate reports do more harm than good in structuring finance for petroleum products supply into Nigeria."

He added that it was on record that Taleveras was one of the most active supplier of refined petroleum products in and out of Africa as a whole and in particular, PPMC under the Duke/Taleveras arrangement,  are more often than not, used as a performance example.
"Taleveras is made up of young enterprising Nigerians, the journey for us spans over 13 years of active and gradual growth, conducting our various business activities diligently and professionally, we employ a great number of skilled and unskilled dynamic Nigerians, we have built a strong brand that has attracted serious international recognition doing business in various parts of the world and with top class counterparts, so we take our reputation and perceptions seriously," he said.