Dangote Industries Limited’s (DIL) Vice President of Oil and Gas, Devakumar Edwin, alleges that International Oil Companies (IOCs) in Nigeria are deliberately undermining the Dangote Oil Refinery and Petrochemicals project, actively working against its success.
During a training program for Energy Editors hosted by the Dangote Group, Edwin revealed that International Oil Companies (IOCs) are hindering the refinery’s attempts to procure local crude oil by artificially inflating prices, compelling the refinery to import crude from distant nations like the United States, thereby increasing production costs.
He was quoted by Nairametrics as saying, “While the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) are trying their best to allocate crude for us, the IOCs are deliberately and willfully frustrating our efforts to buy local crude.
“It would be recalled that 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 rice.
“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,” Edwin was quoted as adding.
Aliko Dangote, Chairman of the Dangote Group, revealed in a recent CNN interview that international oil companies in Nigeria are reluctant to supply crude oil to his refinery, preferring instead to export it for foreign exchange, a practice they are unwilling to abandon.
