OICs sell crude at higher price to sabotage Dangote Refinery – Firm VP, Edwin

Dangote Industries Limited (DIL) Vice President of Oil and Gas Devakumar Edwin has accused International Oil Companies (IOCs) of impeding the Dangote Refinery’s fuel supply launch by selling crude oil at premium prices.

Edwin revealed this during a recent one-day press training session.

He emphasized that by increasing premium pricing above market rates, the IOCs were purposefully impeding the refinery’s attempts to buy local oil, forcing it to import petroleum from far-off nations like the United States, which resulted in noticeably higher expenses.

“While the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, NUPRC, is trying its best to allocate crude for us, the IOCs are deliberately and willfully frustrating our efforts to buy the local crude.

“It would be recalled that the NUPRC, recently met with crude oil producers, as well as refinery owners in Nigeria, in a bid to ensure full adherence to Domestic Crude Oil Supply Obligations (DCSO), as enunciated under section 109(2) of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA). It seems that the IOCs’ objective is to ensure that our Petroleum Refinery fails.

“It is either they are deliberately asking for ridiculous/humongous premium or they simply state that crude is not available. At some point, we paid $6 over and above the market price

“This has forced us to reduce our output, as well as import crude from countries as far as the US, increasing our cost of production,” Edwin stated.

Recall that Dangote Refinery has persisted in bemoaning the lack of crude oil availability in spite of the NUPRC’s directive to sell the commodity to regional refineries before to shipping it overseas.

Aliko Dangote stated in a June CNN interview that IOCs were defying the Commission’s directive to supply domestic refineries with crude.

On multiple times, Dangote Refinery attempted to purchase crude oil from the United States.

It recently changed the start date of its gasoline supply from June to July 10–15, 2024, due to what the business described as minor issues.

According to Oil Prices Data, Brent Crude and West Taxes Intermediate (US) were sold at $85.17 and $80.65, respectively, on Sunday.

In the meantime, the National Bureau of Statistics reports that the cost of gasoline rose from N702 in April 2024 to N769.62 in May 2024.