House of Representatives leaders visit Dangote refinery

Leaders of the House of Representatives, led by President Tajudeen Abbas, visited the $20 billion Dangote Oil Refinery in Lagos State.

The lawmakers arrived at the refinery located at the Lekki Free Trade Zone in Lagos at about 11am on Saturday and were received by the Chairman of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, and top executives of the company.

Lawmakers are expected to tour the 650,000 barrel-per-day refinery during the visit and discuss the plan to start gasoline deliveries next month.

The visit marks the second time federal lawmakers will visit the refinery this year following the visit of Senate leaders, led by Senate President Godswill Akpaio, to the facility in June.

The lawmaker’s visit comes days after Nigeria’s Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Authority Chief Executive Officer Farouk Ahmed said diesel produced by the Dangote refinery contains high sulfur content of about 1,000 parts per million.

Ahmed also said the Federal Government would not stop the importation of petroleum products, saying Nigeria cannot rely on a single refinery to feed the nation.

He revealed that the refinery, which has been selling diesel and aviation fuel in Nigeria for months, has not been licensed, saying it is still in the pre-commissioning stage.

“The claim in some media outlets that steps were being taken to sink the Dangote refinery is not true. The Dangote refinery is still in the pre-commissioning stage. It has not yet been licensed; we have not yet granted the license. They are still in the pre-commissioning stage. I think they have completed about 45 per cent of the works,” he said.

The NMDPRA boss warned that Nigeria cannot rely heavily on the Dangote refinery for its fuel supply.

According to him, the refinery had requested the regulator to stop issuing import licences to other traders so that it could be the sole supplier of fuel in Nigeria.

“We cannot rely heavily on one refinery to feed the nation, because Dangote is asking us to suspend or stop the importation of all petroleum products, especially AGO, and direct all traders to the refinery; that is not good for the nation in terms of energy security. And that is not good for the market, because of the monopoly,” he stressed.

Speaking on quality, he said: “In terms of quality, currently the quality of AGO in terms of sulphur is the lowest as far as the West African requirement of 50 ppm is concerned.

“Dangote refinery and some modular refineries like Waltersmith refinery and Aradel refinery are producing between 650 and 1,200 ppm, so in terms of quality, their product is much inferior to the imported quality,” he said.