Again, Dangote accuses IOCs of crude oil price manipulation, sabotage

Dangote Industries Limited (DIL), has accused international oil companies (IOCs) in Nigeria of doing everything to frustrate the survival of Dangote Oil Refinery and Petrochemicals through crude oil price mnipulations and sabotage.

Devakumar Edwin, the Vice President of Oil and Gas at Dangote Industries Limited (DIL) made the accusation while addressing a group of Energy Editors at a one-day training programme organised by the Dangote Group.

Edwin stated that the IOCs are intentionally obstructing the refinery’s efforts to purchase local crude by inflating premium prices above market rates, compelling the refinery to import crude from distant countries like the United States, leading to significantly higher costs.

“While the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) are trying their best to allocate the 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.

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“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 said.

This is not the first time that the company will be levelling the accusation.

In a recent interview with CNN, Aliko Dangote, chairman and president of Dangote Refinery, said the IOCs are refusing to comply with the mandate, adding that they are not selling them crude oil for processing.

“The NNPC is doing its best, but some of the IOCs, they are struggling to give us crude, everybody is used to exporting and nobody wants to stop exporting,” Dangote said.

By: Babajide Okeowo

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