By Isaac Anyaogu
LAGOS (Reuters) – Nigeria’s Dangote oil refinery has a stockpile of 500 million litres of petrol, its billionaire founder said, countering claims by marketers who asserted they needed to supplement Dangote’s supplies with imports to meet fuel shortages.
Nigeria’s President, Bola Tinubu, had summoned oil regulators, the head of the state-owned NNPC, the finance minister, and Aliko Dangote to a meeting in Abuja on Tuesday.
The purpose was to review a policy requiring NNPC to sell crude oil to the Dangote refinery in local naira currency in an effort to ease foreign exchange pressure and help the mega refinery secure enough crude to meet its 650,000-barrel-per-day capacity.
Following the meeting, Dangote clarified that his business is not involved in retailing petrol and he should not be blamed for fuel shortages in Africa’s top oil producing country.
He also said that keeping fuel in storage tanks is costing him money.
“I expect the NNPC and marketers to stop importing. They should come and collect; we have everything they need,” said Dangote.
Two weeks ago, local fuel traders began increasing imports, claiming that the Dangote refinery was unable to meet domestic demand, exacerbating fuel shortages.
The Dangote Oil Refinery in Lagos began processing petrol in September, initially setting out to supply 25 million litres per day. The goal is to gradually increase production to 35 million litres daily, which Dangote believes will be sufficient to meet local demand.
At an oil conference in Lagos on Monday, however, the sector regulator said Nigeria’s daily petrol demand is between 45 and 50 million litres.
In a statement issued by a government spokesperson, President Tinubu urged stakeholders to focus on supplying enough petrol for local consumption to reduce dependence on imports.
He also directed them to use Afreximbank, the financial adviser for the naira crude sale scheme, as the settlement bank for naira pricing of crude and refined products.
Dangote previously had to buy crude on the international market, but it filed a complaint saying oil majors were blocking its access to locally produced oil by selling it above market price or claiming it was unavailable, forcing the refinery to rely on expensive imports.
Wale Edun, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, said the plan to sell crude in naira would remain in place, and the government would not intervene in determining the exchange rate for the oil sector.
Nigeria aims to end the importation of petroleum products once the Dangote Refinery reaches full operational capacity.
(Reporting by Isaac Anyaogu; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
