Dangote Refinery Accuses Foreign Oil Firms in Nigeria of Starving It of Crude Oil

Dangote industry has accused International Oil Companies operating in Nigeria of attempting to cripple operations of its 650,000 barrels daily refinery at Lekki in Lagos.

Dangote alleges that the multinational oil companies, including Mobil, Shell, Chevron and others of starving its refinery of crude supply.

Vice president of oil and gas at Dangote industries limited, Devakumar Edwin cried out at a training workshop organized by the company for energy editors in Lagos.

He acknowledged the sale of limited crude to the refinery by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company.

Edwin, however, accused the multinational oil companies of ignoring the directive of Nigerian upstream petroleum regulatory commission to prioritize the sale of their locally produced crude to Dangote refinery.

According to him, they are either deliberately exporting the crude to their parent countries in the EU or the US, or asking Dangote refinery to pay above the global price for crude.

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He said at times, Dangote refinery paid up to $6 per barrel above the world market price to the IOCs.

Edwin adds that the ploy of the IOCs had been forcing it to resort to exporting crude, thereby raising its production costs, and encouraging the continued importation of petroleum products from the refineries in Europe and the US.

But Dangote recently said Nigeria would no longer import any fuel by the time he begins the sale of PMS in the third week of July.

Efforts to get the IOCs to react to the development through the Oil Producers Trade Section of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry were unsuccessful.

The Director-General, LCCI, Chinyere Almona, had yet to respond to a text sent to her on the matter up till when this report was filed after her phone number remained unreachable.

Also, the spokesperson of NMDPRA, George Ene-Ita, requested details about the claims of the Dangote official when contacted. This was sent to him, but he had yet to send a response up till when this report was filed.