LAGOS, Nigeria – A call for federal legislation on waste oil disposal and collection gained traction at the Nigerian Lubricant Summit held from Nov. 24 through Nov. 26.
Lubcon International Ltd. Chairman Jani Ibrahim proposed a bill on waste oil disposal and collection during his speech to delegates.
We are working on it and bringing people of like mind together so that we can sponsor this bill, because sustainability of the environment is very crucial to this industry, Ibrahim told Lube Report on the sidelines of the summit.
As a result of this, we must send a bill to the national assembly so that we can have the enabling laws that will guide the disposal of used lubricant and waste oils, and this is very important, he said. Legislation can do it, and this is how it is done all over the world, and we are not an exception.
Philip Asiodu, chairman of the summit and the nations former secretary of petroleum and mineral resources, said that lack of enabling laws on waste oils collection and disposal has remained an impediment to rerefining in Nigeria. Asiodu recalled an incident in 1989 when he co-founded a rerefining venture known as Lube Oils Ltd. but was stalled by the absence of laws which supported and encouraged rerefining. The purpose was to refine used lubricants and produce refined base oil and reduce, perhaps by up to 30 percent, the importation of base oil, he said.
By 1991, we had succeeded in signing all the necessary agreements with an American company with the necessary know-how and also in obtaining a loan from [the Nigerian Bank of Industry]. Asidou added that his company was unable to convince the federal or local government to pass laws that used lubricants be collected and sent to rerefineries rather than poured down drains or onto the ground. It has therefore not been possible for us to implement the project up until today, and I do not know of any such plant anywhere in the country.
A-Z Petroleum Products Managing Director Linus Ilozue emphasized that the bill will be helpful because it will create some order in waste oil collection and disposal. Viken Najarian, specialty project manager for Total Nigeria, agreed, saying the bill will help to solve the problem of waste oils collection.
A bill should be sent to the National Assembly to force the people to be caring about the environment by not allowing dumping of waste oil on the environment, Najarian told Lube Report.
Najarian noted that Total Nigeria has a small plant for recycling waste oil, but a major challenge to used oil collection is that operators prefer to just dump waste lubricants.