Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri, on Monday, hosted what the ministry described as a crucial meeting with Dangote as well as officials of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) in an apparent move to sort out the recent altercations between the two parties.
At the meeting also, according to a statement from the spokesperson of the minister, Amaka Okafor, were the leadership of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and that of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).
Although no specifics were mentioned by the statement, the disagreement between the chief executive of NMDPRA, Farouk Ahmed, and Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, had recently dominated the public space.
The disagreement was over the quality of the products being churned out by the $19 billion, 650,000 barrels per day (bpd) oil refinery owned by Dangote, which Ahmed’s NMDPRA alleged was producing fuels with high sulphur content.
Ahmed, who spoke in Port Harcourt, stated that Dangote refinery had not even been granted a full license to operate, explaining that the facility cannot be solely relied upon to satisfy the fuel needs of the country
The usually taciturn NMDPRA boss added that he had been under pressure by the Dangote refinery to stop all import of diesel and jet fuel, despite the fact that the imported fuels had lower Sulphur content than the ones from Dangote refinery.
Ahmed said, “The Dangote refinery is still in the pre-commissioning stage. It has not been licensed yet. We haven’t licenced them yet. They are still in pre-commissioning stage. I think they’re about 45 per cent completed, in completion rather.
“So we cannot 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 AGO (diesel) and jet fuel, and direct all marketers to the refinery.
“So, in terms of quality, currently…Dangote refinery as well as some major refineries like Waltersmith refinery, produce between 650ppm to 1,200 ppm. So, in terms of quality, their quality is much inferior to the imported quality.”
But conducting federal lawmakers round the facility in Lagos at the weekend, Dangote said contrary to the position of the head of the NMDPRA, his products were actually of far higher quality than imported fuels.
Dangote rejected the claims by the industry regulator that the products from his new refinery were substandard, expressing doubts over the quality of laboratories used in testing the standard of fuels in the country by NMDPRA.
To convince his visitors that his position was factual, Dangote and his team tested samples of diesel bought from two separate filling stations and another one from his refinery in his laboratories.
He admitted that when the refinery started, it was turning out about 600ppm to 650ppm, which was still the best quality at the time. He stressed that the refinery now had less than 87ppm products and was set to hit 10ppm next month, compared to over 1,800ppm and over 2,600ppm, respectively, from the other tested samples.
The statement from the ministry said Lokpobiri convened the high-level meeting with key stakeholders to address and resolve the ongoing issues surrounding Dangote refinery.
Present at the meeting, aside Dangote, the statement disclosed, were Ahmed, NUPRC’s Gbenga Komolafe, as well as NNPCL’s Mele Kyari.
