In what appears a major shift from previous clam by the Dangote Refinery company, the Group Chief Strategy Officer, Dangote Refinery and Petrochemicals Company, Aliyu Suleiman on Wednesday, stated that 60 per cent of the crude supplied to the refinery was done by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL.
Aliyu made the submission during an interactive session organised by the Senate Ad-hoc committee to investigate alleged sabotage in the Nigerian petroleum industry.
This supersedes the position of the Group Chief Commercial Officer, Dangote Industries Limited, Rabiu A. Umar, who had claimed that the NNPC has been supplying insufficient crude oil for its production demand.
Umar had said that NNPC supplies only 33 per cent of crude to the refinery, disclosing that it had to look elsewhere to source the remaining 67 per cent to meet its production capacity.
He added that the refinery, which has the capacity of refining 650,000 per day, could not depend on short supply from Nigeria’s oil company.
But during his presentation, Aliyu Suleiman stated that out of the five million barrels of crude oil they got in recent time, “NNPC gave them 60 per cent, 20 per cent was imported, and 20 per cent was purchased”.
Aliyu expressed gratitude for the strong partnership between the Dangote Refinery and the NNPC Ltd, and for making the huge supply to Dangote.
He described the refinery as a baby that should be supported by all relevant stakeholders “in order to grow and not die”.