Aliko Dangote Makes Offer To Sell An Oil Refinery-FG Amidst unresolved issues with the federal government, Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, is willing to sell his multibillion-dollar oil refinery to Nigeria’s state-owned energy corporation, NNPC Limited.
After ten years of building, the 650,000 barrel per day refinery started operating last year. However, it has faced hurdles, such as obtaining crude oil from foreign producers.
The refinery has a supply agreement with NNPC, but since last year, NNPC has only supplied 6.9 million barrels of oil, leaving the refinery to look for other suppliers from nations like Brazil and the US.
Dangote has voiced his dissatisfaction with the challenges his refinery is encountering and that he is willing to abandon the project if it will help the nation.
“Let them (NNPCL) buy me out and run the refinery the best way they can. They have labelled me a monopolist. That’s an incorrect and unfair allegation, but it’s OK. If they buy me out, at least, their so-called monopolist would be out of the way,” Dangote said in a recent interview.
Premium Times was allowed an interview on Sunday.
Dangote, who has long dominated the sugar, salt and cement sectors in Nigeria, made the difficult decision to enter the oil and gas sector.
Building the refinery cost $19 billion, more than twice as much as originally projected. It claims to save up to 30% of the foreign cash used on imports and lessen Nigeria’s dependency on gasoline imports.
It is believed that because of challenges obtaining crude oil from foreign suppliers, the refinery, which is scheduled to discharge its first batch of fuel onto the Nigerian market in August, has been running at little over half its capacity.
“As you probably know, I am 67 years old. In less than three years, I will be 70. I need very little to live the rest of my life. I can’t take the refinery or any other property or asset to my grave. Everything I do is in the interest of my country,” Dangote said.
“This refinery can help resolve the problem, but it seems some people are uncomfortable with me in the picture. So I am ready to let go, let the NNPC buy me out and run the refinery. At least the country will have high-quality products and create jobs,” he added.
Dangote’s decision comes after facing several obstacles, which he believes validate the caution advised by friends and associates when he invested billions into Nigeria’s economy.
“Four years ago, one of my very wealthy friends began to invest his money abroad. I disagreed with him and urged him to rethink his action in the interest of his country. He blamed his action on policy inconsistencies and interest groups. That friend has been taunting me in the past few days, saying he warned me and that he has been proven right,” Dangote said.
The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), according to Devakumar Edwin, Vice President of Oil and Gas of Dangote Group, is allegedly allowing the importation of inferior fuel into the nation. Farouk Ahmed, CEO of NMDPRA, retorted that excessive sulphur content in diesel generated by Dangote’s refinery and other similar plants, such Waltersmith and Aradel, could harm car engines and the environment.
Aliko Dangote, however, refuted the regulator’s assertions during a recent House of Representatives tour of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Dangote Fertiliser Limited complex. Dangote’s diesel has 87.6 ppm of sulphur, which is much less than the 1800 ppm and 2000 ppm found in imported samples, according to lab tests done during the tour.
Sulphur content in Dangote’s fuel is a meagre 87.6 parts per million, far less than the 1800 and 2000 parts per million detected in samples that were imported. Dangote argued for a fair evaluation to ascertain what was in Nigeria’s best interests and challenged the regulator to perform an unbiased comparison of the quality of his refinery’s products against imported ones.
In order to avoid charges of monopoly, Dangote also declared during the tour that he would stop investing in Nigeria’s steel sector.
