Business mogul and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Dangote Refinery, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, says that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Limited no longer owned a 20 percent stake in the new entity.
Speaking to Press executives on a guided tour of the refinery on Sunday, Dangote said NNPC currently owned only 7.2 percent of the refinery because it failed to pay up the balance for its shareholding due June 2024.
However, Dangote said the refinery would now roll out petrol from August 2024, having resolved its crude oil supply issues through the help of the NNPCL and the Federal Government.
Dangote told over 70 journalists who were part of the refinery tour that there was a massive request for fertiliser from Nigerians and the rest of Africa, so his group had no choice but to respond positively.
He said: “NNPC no longer owns 20 percent stake in the Dangote refinery. They were met to pay their balance in June, but have yet to fulfil the obligations. Now, they only own a 7.2 percent stake in the refinery.”
According to him, while the NNPC had promised to provide the funds, it failed to meet the obligation.
Dangote said NNPC’s reneging on payment reduced its stake in the $19 billion refinery to 7.2 percent.
According to him, the crude supply crunch, which affected the supply of petrol from the refinery, was resolved last week after the federal government intervened.
Recently the Dangote Industries Limited (DIL) raised an alarm over attempts by international oil companies (IOCs) to frustrate efforts at purchasing crude for the refinery.
“While the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC)are trying their best to allocate the crude for us, the IOCs are deliberately and willfully frustrating our efforts to buy the local crude,” the Vice President, Oil and Gas at DIL, Devakumar Edwin, told energy editors in June.
“It seems that the 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 price. 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.”
Beyond resolving the crude supply issues and announcing plans to roll out petrol in August, Dangote also told journalists that the refinery’s fertiliser unit would resume production in two weeks.
This would give farmers more access to fertiliser for their farm products.
