THE Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and the Dangote Petroleum Refinery have promised to strengthen and promote mutually beneficial partnerships and foster healthy competition in the Nigerian oil and gas sector.
This was contained in a statement mailed to journalists on Friday, May 9, by the NNPCL’s Chief Corporate Communications officer, Olufemi Soneye.
The statement said the renewed commitment was to bring out healthy competition geared towards national prosperity.
The two oil giants pledged to deepen collaboration aimed at ensuring Nigeria’s energy security and advancing shared prosperity for Nigerians.
The committment was affirmed when the president/chief executive officer (CEO) of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, led a delegation to the Group CEO of NNPCL Bashir Bayo Ojulari at the NNPC Towers on Thursday, April 8.
During the visit, Dangote pledged to collaborate with the new NNPCL Management to ensure energy security for Nigeria.
He said, “There is no competition between us, we are not here to compete with NNPC Ltd. NNPC is part and parcel of our business, and we are also part of NNPC. This is an era of co-operation between the two organisations.”
Dangote, however, expressed concern over what he called the enormity of the responsibility ahead of the new NNPCL board, stressing that the NNPCL boss would shoulder a monumental task which he believes is not unsurmountable.
On his part, Ojulari assured Dangote of a mutually beneficial partnership anchored on healthy competition and productive collaboration.
He expressed the company’s readiness to build a legacy of national prosperity through innovation and shared purpose.
He assured that NNPCL would sustain its collaboration with the Dangote Group especially where there is commercial advantage for Nigeria.
Both executives also committed to being the relationship managers for their respective organisations through sustained productive collaboration and healthy competition, thereby envisioning limitless opportunities for both organisations.
Recall, Dangote and NNPCL have been at loggerheads over the supply of crude oil as well as petroleum products prices.
The ICIR reports that on October 1, 2024, commenced the sale of crude oil and refined petroleum products in naira to local refineries to improve supply save the country millions of dollars in petroleum products imports, and ultimately reduce pump prices.
On March 10, the NNPCL halted the naira-for-crude arrangement because the deal was for six months and ended on March 31.
However, on April 9, the federal government raised the hope that the naira-for-crude oil deal would continue after the first phase.