The Vice President of Oil and Gas at Dangote Industries Limited, Devakumar Edwin, has insisted that the refinery can survive without local patronage and would export most of its products if boycott from local oil traders continue.
Edwin, who confirmed that the refinery has commenced the production of petrol, said it would export the product if the local market is not there.
Nigeria has been gripped by an acute shortage of petrol in the past two months with NNPC admitting that it owes suppliers over $6 billion.
Edwin said: “We have been exporting aviation fuel, we have been producing kerosene, we have been producing diesel, but yesterday, we started the production of PMS. So, that was the last stage. The only thing now left out is petrochemicals”.
He disclosed that the refinery is still facing domestic crude oil supply challenges, adding that it has resorted to importing most of its crude oil needs.
He explained that the “same thing is continuing. We are not getting enough crude allocation, and the crude is still being exported. We are forced to import crude from outside. Yes, we are getting some crude locally, but it’s not adequate.”
According to him, the company has started the construction of four crude tanks of 120 million litres capacity each to store imported crude due to low local supply.
“If you see the refinery, we are building four new crude tanks, each of the tanks has 120 million litres capacity. We have to construct the tanks because we are not getting the local crude. We import from overseas, which means we should have enough stocks due to the shipping time.
“What is happening today? We are struggling to get the crude. We are now importing the crude from the US, we are importing from Brazil, and from other parts of the world. So, the whole philosophy has gone upside down. After all these decades, we are exporting crude, importing products”, he added.
He pointed out that despite having a gantry that can load 2,900 tankers per day, the refinery has not loaded up to five percent of the gantry’s capacity owing to low local patronage.
“Go and see our product gantry, we can load 86 tankers at any given time. We can load 2,900 tankers of petroleum products every day, but we are not even loading five per cent, because those who are interested in the trading business, feel that probably this local production is going to affect their established interest, so they are not allowing our products to be sold locally.
“They are not coming to lift our products. So, what are we doing? We are exporting the products”, he disclosed.
