The management of Dangote Refinery, Africa’s biggest private refinery, has clarified that the Nigerian Government through the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) does not own 20 per cent stake in the refinery.
It said NNPCL which was expected to own 20 per cent stake in the refinery, now only owns 7.2 per cent stake.
The Chief Executive Officer of Dangote Refinery, Aliko Dangote, has revealed this on Sunday while briefing journalists in Lagos State.
He said, “NNPC no longer owns a 20% stake in the Dangote refinery. They were meant to pay their balance in June but have yet to fulfill the obligations. Now, they only own a 7.2% stake in the refinery.”
Speaking to journalists at a one-day training programme organised by the Dangote Group on Friday, the Vice President of Oil and Gas at Dangote Industries Limited, Devakumar Edwin accused International Oil Companies in Nigeria of plans to frustrate the survival of the new Dangote Oil Refinery and Petrochemicals.
Edwin also accused the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority of granting licences indiscriminately to marketers to import dirty refined products into the country.
He noted that though the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission was trying its best to allocate crude oil for the 650,000-capacity refinery, “the IOCs are deliberately and willfully frustrating our efforts to buy the local crude.”
This, he said, was done by hiking the cost above the market price, thereby forcing the refinery to import crude from countries as far as the United States, with its attendant high costs.
More so, the Federal Government and crude oil producers in Nigeria have shown commitment to working towards a sustainable supply of crude oil to local refineries under a market-determined pricing system.
Both parties said the commitment aimed to ensure that while the operators (crude oil producers) do business optimally, the refineries are not starved of feedstock.
Accordingly, the industry regulator, the Nigeria Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission has directed oil refiners in the country to provide monthly price quotes on crude supply.
As contained in a Bloomberg report on Friday, the refinery is set to import a cargo of Brazilian crude, Bloomberg reported on Friday.
It said this would add to the large number of overseas barrels of crude feedstock that the Nigerian firm was importing.
