The lingering crisis in Nigeria’s petroleum sector took a new dimension on Sunday as the Chief Executive Officer of Dangote Refinery, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, revealed that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation now owns a 7.2 per cent stake in the mega refinery following the nations oil industry regulator to pay up its balance for a 20% stake.
Aliko Dangote made the revelation during a media briefing held in Lagos State on Sunday.
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.
