THE Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) said it has not licensed the Dangote refinery even as marketers hope to start getting petrol products from it next month amid fuel scarcity faced in the country.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NMDPRA, Farouk Ahmed, told journalists on Thursday, July 18, that the refinery was still at the pre-commissioning stage.
He said there were numerous concerns regarding the petroleum products supply nationwide.
“Well, just like you rightly asked, there are lots of concerns about the supply of petroleum products nationwide and the claims by some media houses that we were trying to scuttle the Dangote refinery; that is not so.
“Dangote refinery is still in the pre-commissioning stage. It has not been licensed yet. We have not licensed them yet,” Ahmed was quoted to have said.
According to him, the demand for the Dangote refinery cannot be met by the authorities at this time hence it could lead to energy insecurity and market monopoly.
He said: “So we can not rely heavily on one refinery to feed the nation because Dangote is requesting that we should suspend or stop all importation of petroleum products, especially automotive gas oil (AGO) or jet kero, and direct all marketers to the refinery.
He further asserted that products coming out of the Dangote refinery were of low quality and inferior to import products.
“Dangote refinery as well as some major refineries like Waltersmith refinery, produce between 650 to 1200 ppm. So, in terms of quality, their quality is much more inferior to the imported quality,” Ahmed added.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Gbenga Komolafe, also took a turn to describe the claim by the Dangote refinery as “erroneous”, saying that the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) has provisions that guide willing buyer-willing seller transactions.
The ICIR reports that the management of Dangote Industries Limited (DIL) had earlier accused the international oil companies (IoCs) and insisted that oil companies were frustrating its request to purchase crude feedstock for its refinery.
The Dangote refinery, which has been sourcing crude oil from the United States and expected to commence petrol production in July, had rescheduled the planned commencement to August, The ICIR reported.
The ICIR reports that the recent fuel scarcity that hit most of the filling stations of Nigeria’s sole importer of petroleum products, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), and other independent and private filling stations have yet to abate amid a hike in pump price.