By: Babajide Okeowo
Dangote Industries Limited (DIL), has accused the international oil company (IOC) in Nigeria of doing everything it can to thwart the survival of the Dangote Oil Refinery and Petrochemicals through manipulation and sabotage of crude oil prices.
Devakumar Edwin, Vice President Oil and Gas at Dangote Industries Limited (DIL) made the allegations while addressing a group of Energy Editors at a one-day training program organized by Dangote Group.
Edwin stated that IOC deliberately hindered the refinery’s efforts to purchase local crude oil by raising premium prices above market prices, thereby forcing the refinery to import crude oil from distant countries such as the United States, resulting in much higher costs.
“While the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) is making every effort to allocate crude oil to us, the IOC is deliberately and willfully thwarting our efforts to purchase local crude oil.
“It would be recalled that the NUPRC, recently met with crude oil producers as well as refinery owners in Nigeria, in an effort to ensure full compliance with the Domestic Crude Oil Supply Obligation (DCSO), as stated in article 109(2) of the Agreement. Petroleum Industry Act (PIA). It seems that the IOC’s goal is to ensure that our Oil Refineries fail.
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“Perhaps they are deliberately asking for ridiculous/huge premiums or simply stating that crude oil is not available. At some point, we were paying $6 above market price
“This forces us to reduce production and import crude oil from countries like America, thereby increasing our production costs,” said Edwin.
This is not the first time the company has made such accusations.
In a recent interview with CNN, Aliko Dangote, chairman and president of Dangote Refinery, said IOC refused to comply with the mandate, adding that it does not sell crude oil for processing.
“NNPC is doing its best, but some IOCs are having difficulty providing us with crude oil, everyone is used to exporting and no one wants to stop exporting,” Dangote said.
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