The Group Chief Commercial Officer Dangote Industries Limited, Rabiu Umar, has lamented that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, (NNPC), supplies only 33 percent of crude oil needs to the refinery.
Speaking with newsmen in Kano over the weekend, Umar disclosed that the refinery had to look elsewhere to source for the remaining 67 percent to meet its production capacity.
He said the refinery, which has the capacity of refining 650,000 per day, could not depend on short supply from the Nigeria’s oil company.
“First of all the refinery is here in Nigeria. We have the crude oil here in Nigeria. We thought we would get the crude oil here and refine it here in our refinery for the benefit of the country and the citizens.
“Ironically, the country takes the crude oil overseas for refining while we have a refinery, one of the biggest in the world.
“So, we will not stay idle. We have to look for other sources to meet our production capacity. If we get the crude oil supply here in the country we have no reason to go overseas.
“Even now, we are planning to receive crude oil from countries like Brazil and USA,” Umar lamented.
The Chief Commercial Officer said, the refinery commenced supplies to foreign countries since February, disclosing that they receive orders from different countries for supply, especially aviation fuel.
He further revealed that the refinery needs 15 cargos of crude oil in September but NNPC promised only five, lamenting that they see the government’s lackadaisical actions towards the refinery as sabotage.
Ahmad Sorondinki
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