Alhaji Aliko Dangote, president of the Dangote Group, has expressed skepticism about the likelihood of the state-owned refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna reopening. Dangote said that the refineries, which are run by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, had refused to operate despite squandering up to $18 billion.
Following a visit of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery in Lekki, Lagos, the billionaire entrepreneur gave a speech on Thursday while entertaining participants of the Lagos Business School’s Global CEO Africa Programme.
Dangote claims that the 650,000-capacity Dangote refinery, which he constructed after the late President Umar Yar’adua’s administration abandoned his plans to acquire government refineries, now produces more than 50% of its output in the form of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol), while even government refineries only devote 22% of their output to this product.
He stated that in 2007, just months after former President Olusegun Obasanjo stepped down, he and his team had to surrender the refineries to Yar’adua. He said that as a parting present to him, the former refinery managers had informed Yar’Adua that Obasanjo had sold the facilities below their costs.
“The refineries that we bought before, which were owned by Nigeria, were doing about 22 per cent of PMS. We bought the refineries in January 2007. Then we had to return them to the government because there was a change of government.
“And the managing director at that time convinced Yar’adua that the refineries would work. They said they just gave them to us as a parting gift or so. And as of today, they have spent about $18bn on those refineries, and they are still not working. And I don’t think, and I doubt very much if they will work” he remarked.
The recent shutdown of the 60,000 barrels per day old Port Harcourt refinery, six months after it was declared operational, heightened calls for the privatization of the government-owned refineries under NNPC’s supervision.
A month after Mele Kyari, the former Group Chief Executive Officer of the NNPC, said it was open in December, the Warri refinery was likewise shut down.
