The Vice President of Oil and Gas at Dangote Industries Limited, Devakumar Edwin has accused International Oil Companies in Nigeria of actively trying to sabotage the Dangote Oil Refinery and Petrochemicals.
This was disclosed by Edwin to a group of Energy Editors at a one-day training programme organised by the Dangote Group, according to Nairametrics.
Edwin stated that the IOCs are intentionally impeding the refinery’s attempts to buy local crude by inflating premium prices above market rates, forcing it to import petroleum from far-off nations like the United States, which has far higher costs.
He said “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.
“It would be recalled that the NUPRC, recently met with crude oil producers as well as refinery owners in Nigeria, in a bid to ensure full adherence to Domestic Crude Oil Supply Obligations (DCSO), as enunciated under section 109(2) of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA). It seems that the IOCs’ 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.”
The Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) states that foreign oil corporations must deliver crude oil to domestic refineries to meet local demand before exporting.
The Act was signed during the Buhari administration, and the NUPRC has now been reinstated by the NUPRC.
According to the Commission, IOCs are mandated to sell first to local refineries before exporting to foreign countries.
The chairman and president of the Dangote refinery, Aliko Dangote had stated in a recent interview with CNN that the IOC is not following the directive and that they are not providing them with crude oil for processing.
“The NNPC is doing its best, but some of the IOCs, they are struggling to give us crude, everybody is used to exporting and nobody wants to stop exporting,” Dangote said.
The Dangote refinery in full capacity is the biggest petroleum refinery in all of Africa and Europe.
The refinery is anticipated to deliver petroleum products to Nigeria and other African nations, stopping the over-reliance on Europe for their energy needs.
