By Kolawole Ojebisi
The Vice -President of Dangote Industries Limited, Edwin Devakumar, has expressed disappointment over the federal government’s initiative to sell crude priced in naira as an impracticable scheme that has started faltering.
Devakumar stressed that the Nigerian National Petrolatum Company (NNPCL) has consistently failed to meet up with the agreed crude barrels per day. He described the deliveries from Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited under the scheme as “peanuts”.
Devakumar revealed this while speaking to Reuters on Friday.
“We need 650,000 barrels per day, (state oil firm NNPC Ltd) agreed to give a minimum of 385,000 bpd but they are not even delivering that,” Devakumar said.
Recall that on October 5, the federal government said Nigeria officially commenced the sale of crude oil and refined petroleum products in naira — with Dangote refinery focusing on local supply.
A few weeks later, the refinery received four cargoes of crude oil from the NNPC under the naira-for-crude sale agreement.
On November 21, the Lekki-based refinery purchased its first shipment of US oil after a three-month break as the firm sought to increase production.
Also recall that, President of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, had recently cried out, saying some international oil companies were planning to sabotage the investment by refusing to supply crude.
The Dangote Group had alleged that the International Oil Companies (IOCs) insisted on selling crude oil to its refinery through their foreign agents.
According to the company, the local price of crude would continue to increase because the trading arms offered cargoes at $2 to $4 per barrel, above the official price.
The group also alleged that the foreign oil producers seem to be prioritising Asian countries in selling the crude they produce in Nigeria.
Despite the intervention of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) in July, the group insisted that the IOCs were still frustrating the refinery.
