Nigeria's $3 billion oil debt will make President Bola Tinubu's reforms more difficult

According to four traders and executives, Nigeria has accumulated up to $3 billion in arrears for gasoline deliveries to trading businesses such as Vitol and oil giants such as BP (BP.L) and is four to six months behind schedule in repaying them with crude shipments.This information was provided to the American news agency Reuters by these four traders and executives. Nigeria's debt would almost definitely take months to clear, hampering President Bola Tinubu's reforms aimed at weaning Africa's largest economy and most populous country off costly fuel subsidies that have led to mounting debt and currency shortages. In his first two weeks in office, Tinubu eliminated petrol price limits and naira currency restrictions, liberalization actions that investors had been anticipating for more than a decade.Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer, intends to eliminate an existing arrangement in which it exchanges petroleum for gasoline imports as part of those reforms. For years, Nigeria sold gasoline purchased on the open market at a discount to its citizens, with the government picking up the difference.