July 26, (THEWILL) – The multi-billion dollars Dangote Refinery is not selling-off the crude oil it has received at the plant and remains on course to produce petrol this August as previously scheduled, a senior executive at the group told THEWILL Friday night, in reaction to a news agency report which claimed the refinery is looking for buyers for its crude stock.
The executive, who reacted anonymously, told THEWILL that the news agency report was the handiwork of “Saboteurs targeting our 650,000 refinery. It is rubbish and this is obviously coming from the same people who would rather continue importing petrol from their refinery in Malta.”
While the source said a formal statement will be released by group to debunk the report, THEWILL recalls the dispute between the NMDPRA, NNPCL and the Dangote refinery since Aliko Dangote, President of Dangote Group, announced plans to commence petrol supply in the Nigerian domestic market from August 2024.
Farouk Ahmed, the Chief Executive of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Authority (NMDPRA), had alleged that the diesel produced by the Dangote refinery is inferior to the ones imported into the country, and that their fuel had a large content of Sulphur, which he put at between 650 to 1,200ppm.
THEWILL had reported that a test supervised by Members of the House of Representatives revealed that Dangote’s diesel had a Sulphur content of 87.6 ppm (parts per million), whereas the other two samples diesel imported showed Sulphur levels exceeding 1800 ppm and 2000 ppm respectively, thus disproving the allegations made by the NMDPRA boss.
The Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd was envisioned as Nigeria’s beacon of energy independence.
Amid the raging feud between the Refinery and regulatory authorities, Dangote had alleged some personnel of NNPC, oil traders and terminals have opened a blending plant in Malta.
“Some of the terminals, some of the NNPC people and some traders have opened a blending plant somewhere off Malta. We all know these areas. We know what they are doing”, Dangote said at the house of representatives, on Monday.
Although, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Ltd, through its Group Managing Directors (GMD),Mele Kyari, denied the allegation.
“To clarify the allegations regarding blending plant, I do not own or operate any business directly or by proxy anywhere in the world with the exception of a local mini Agric venture. Neither am I aware of any employee of the NNPC, that owns or operates a blending plant in Malta or anywhere else in the world. A blending plant in Malta or any part of the world has no influence over NNPC’s business operations and strategic actions”, Kyari said in an X post on Tuesday.
However, reports of Data sourced from Trade Map, a global database on international trade statistics, showed Nigeria’s petroleum products import from Malta has surged 43 folds and increased by 342 percent in 2023 to $2.08 billion.
Further insights from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data in the third Quarter of 2023 showed Malta was among the top five import destinations for Nigeria. In Q3 alone, Nigeria’s import worth from Malta alone stood at N561.37 billion.
***Additional reporting by Felix Ifijeh.
