On Wednesday, a fire occurred at a section of Dangote Refinery in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos State.
In a trending video, on X, formerly Twitter, a cloud of thick smoke billowed into the sky from the facility. The sound of an explosion could also be heard in the video.
However, the Group Chief Branding & Communications Officer, Dangote Industries Limited, Anthony Chiejina, confirmed the fire incident to our correspondent in a terse message.
He said the company had contained the minor fire at its effluent treatment plant that broke out in the early hours of Wednesday.
“We have swiftly contained a minor fire incident at our effluent treatment plant (ETP), today Wednesday 26th of June,” he said.
Chiejina also stressed that the refinery is still operating and no injury or body harm is recorded.
“There is no cause for alarm as the refinery is operating and there is no recorded injury or body harm to all our staff on duty,” he added.
The Federal Government, on Tuesday, declared that there was no importation of dirty fuel into Nigeria, countering the recent position of an official of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery.
It declared this after meeting with oil marketers and local refiners of crude oil in Abuja, where parties at the meeting discussed issues about refined products’ pricing, issues of competition and the importation of products that are produced in Nigeria.
Also at the meeting, oil marketers stated that though local refineries were producing some of the refined products, this would not stop marketers from patronising other sources, while also buying products from the indigenous producers.
Speaking through the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, while reacting to claims of dirty fuel importation to Nigeria, the government stated that refined petroleum products with high-sulphur contents were last imported in February, stressing that this had since been addressed by the regulator.
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The Executive Director, Distribution Systems, Storage and Retailing Infrastructure, NMDPRA, Ogbugo Ukoha, disclosed this to journalists after the regulator concluded its meeting with the oil marketers and local crude oil refiners, which had officials from Dangote refinery and modular refineries.
“There is no dirty fuel that is being brought into Nigeria,” Ukoha declared when asked to react to the allegations levelled against the NMDPRA by a senior official of the Dangote refinery.
It was reported on Monday that the Vice President of Oil and Gas at Dangote Industries Limited, Devakumar Edwin, accused the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority of granting licences indiscriminately to marketers to import dirty refined products into the country.
He had stated that even though Dangote was producing and bringing diesel into the market, complying with the regulations of the Economic Community of West African States, “licences are being issued, in large quantities, to traders who are buying the extremely high sulphur diesel from Russia and dumping it in the Nigerian market.”
Edwin had explained, “Since the US, European Union and the United Kingdom imposed a price cap scheme from February 5, 2023, on Russian petroleum products, a large number of vessels are waiting near Togo with Russian ultra-high sulphur diesel and they are being purchased and dumped into the Nigerian market.
