The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission has said it would direct international oil companies to supply crude oil to Dangote oil refinery.
The spokesperson for the NUPRC, Olaide Shonola, stated that the commission was stepping in to guarantee Dangote and other refineries in the nation will be able to purchase crude locally.
This was disclosed by Shonola while reacting to a claim by the Chairman of the Dangote Group that the international oil companies were not ready to sell crude to the refinery, according to The Punch.
Shonola said the NUPRC will issue explicit directions for the IOCs to sell to the Dangote refinery.
“We’ve been intervening and intervening. I am sure you’re aware of a recent meeting that was held with them on domestic crude oil supply. We will keep engaging them, NUPRC has been doing that.
“I can’t say we will force them, but as the regulator, we can mandate. And that’s what we are doing, giving clear directives that this must be done. We will just keep on engaging and you will agree with me that most of these things have to be planned. We will keep on engaging. We will do our regulatory function in that area,” she stated.
“We will mandate them, as in, give clear directives based on our regulatory functions,” she added.
Aliko Dangote stated in a CNN interview that foreign oil companies in Nigeria were not prepared to supply crude oil to the refinery.
He claimed that the multinational oil companies were accustomed to selling crude for foreign exchange and were not prepared to stop.
Despite the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd’s best efforts, according to Dangote, the IOCs preferred to sell their products abroad.
“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,” he stated.
According to the business magnate, Africa was not growing because it sold raw materials to the Western world and bought the same as finished goods.
“Africa is not going the way it should because we export raw materials and import finished goods. It doesn’t matter what it is, even if it is gold or whatever, raw material is always priced at a ridiculous amount compared to finished goods,” Dangote said.
He lamented that some people who benefited from the import of oil did not want the refinery to be successful.
The Dangote 650,000 barrels capacity oil refinery started operation on Friday, January 12, 2024.
