The Dangote Group says upon completion of its refinery, it will dedicate 53 per cent of the capacity to the production of petrol. This translates to dedicating 344,500 barrels of its projected 650,000 barrels per day refining capacity to the production of petrol.
The President and Chief Executive Officer, Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, said this at the headquarters of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, according to a statement issued by the corporation’s Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Ndu Ughamadu.
Dangote also said that the group was not in competition with the refineries of owned by the corporation.
While the Dangote Refinery has a capacity to refine 650,000 barrels of crude oil per day, the consolidated capacity of the NNPC’s four refineries, according to the corporation’s latest operations report on its refineries, is 445,000 barrels per day.
However, the NNPC’s refineries for several years running had hardly delivered up to half their consolidated capacity in terms of crude oil refining.
On Tuesday, The PUNCH reported exclusively that Nigeria’s four refineries under the management of the NNPC had made no profit since May 2018; rather, they posted losses consecutively since May 2018 till May this year.
The country’s refineries under NNPC management include Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company, two plants at Port Harcourt Refining Company and Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company.
Dangote emphasised that the business approach of the Dangote Refinery was to see the NNPC as a collaborator rather than a competitor, noting that the refinery would rely heavily on the corporation’s knowledge of the refining business in Nigeria to achieve its central objective.
He aligned his company with the Federal Government’s aspiration to ensure adequate in-country refining capacity.
Dangote was quoted to have said, “The most important thing for us is to see how we can partner with the NNPC; it is not to see how we can compete with the NNPC. We would like the NNPC to be part of us and we also want to be part of the NNPC. I think that is the only way we can achieve a win-win situation.”
The NNPC’s Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, also stated that the national oil firm was not in contest for market share with the forthcoming Dangote Refinery.
He added that the corporation was rather providing support to the promoters of the project to boost in-country refining capacity.
Kyari stated that as the chief enabler of the Nigerian economy, NNPC had a duty to rally industry players like Dangote Group to achieve the long held target of making Nigeria a net exporter of petroleum products.
The NNPC boss assured his guests that the same level of support would be provided to other promoters of refineries, noting that the ultimate goal was to enhance in-country production to the point of self-sufficiency and ultimately for export.
