The President of Dangote Refinery, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, says the refinery is now set to roll out its petrol from August 2024, having resolved its crude oil supply issues through the help of the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and the Federal government.
Dangote told a team of journalists in Lagos on Sunday that the crude supply challenge, which affected the supply of petrol from the refinery, was resolved last week following the intervention of the Federal government.
The journalists were on a guided tour of the refinery located at the Lekki Free Trade Zone in Lagos.
The Dangote Industries Limited (DIL) recently raised an alarm alleging attempt by international oil companies (IOCs) to frustrate efforts at purchasing crude for the refinery.
“While the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) are trying their best to allocate the crude for us, the IOCs are deliberately and willfully frustrating our efforts to buy the local crude,” the Vice President, Oil and Gas at DIL, Devakumar Edwin, had alleged in June.
“It seems that the objective is to ensure that our Petroleum Refinery fails. It is either they are deliberately asking for ridiculous/humongous premium or, they simply state that crude is not available.
“At some point, we paid $6 over and above the market price. This has forced us to reduce our output as well as import crude from countries as far as the US, increasing our cost of production.”
Fertilizer production
Beyond resolving the crude supply issues and announcing plans to roll out petrol in August, Alhaji Dangote also said the refinery’s fertilizer unit would resume production in two weeks.
This would give farmers more access to fertilizer for their farm products.
Dangote further announced that there is a massive request for fertilizer from Nigerians and the rest of Africa, so his group has no choice but to respond positively.