Concerns grow over failure of Dangote Refinery to meet its August production target

CONCERNS are growing over the continued delay by the Dangote Refinery in Lekki's inability to start producing petrol as promised and living up to its agreement to churn out 650,000 barrels of refined produce a day.

In May this year, former president Muhammadu Buhari opened the Dangote Refinery and the president of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, promised that from August onwards, Nigeria will not have any petrol supply problems. However, four months after the refinery was officially opened, it is yet to refine a single barrel of petroleum or produce one drop of petrol.

Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) spokesman Garba Deen, said in June that the company would cut down its fuel imports programme in August, once the Dangote Refinery began to push out refined petroleum products.  Farouk Ahmed, the chief executive of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Agency, confirmed that the NNPC had cut down on its importations.

One source at the refinery said that the management was unsure of when petrol refining would begin at the Ibeju-Lekki facility. Festus Osifo, the president of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, advised the federal government to focus on completing the Port Harcourt refinery rather than the Dangote refinery.

He said: “We should rather focus on making other refineries work because it would cut down on freight rates from importation and would reduce prices. Dangote is a private businessman and can decide tomorrow that he would not refine again, although the government has a 20% stake in the refinery.

"We should rather push for our own refineries and ask the government the question such as when is the Port Harcourt refinery going to start refining petrol?”

Mike Osatuyi, the national controller operations of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, also said there was no cause for alarm as far as petrol supply was concerned as the NNPC was still importing. he added that the management of the Dangote Refinery may have delayed production due to some internal challenges.