The Dangote Petroleum Refinery has disputed reports claiming that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited allocated seven crude cargoes to it for May loading, with officials stating they are unaware of any such increase.
Senior officials at the refinery told The PUNCH on Thursday that while discussions with the NNPC are ongoing, they could not confirm any change from the five cargoes the refinery has been receiving in previous months.
Reports had emerged on Tuesday suggesting that the NNPC had increased crude oil supply to the refinery to seven cargoes for May to boost domestic fuel production.
But speaking anonymously due to lack of authorisation, one Dangote Group official said, “Our May allocation is about 6.15 million barrels. The report of seven cargoes’ allocation is not clear yet.”
Another official explained that the 650,000-barrel-per-day facility requires over 19 cargoes of crude monthly but struggles to get five. A cargo contains about one million barrels.
“Our monthly requirement is 19.77 million barrels. In October, we got 4.55 million; we got 6.45 million in November; 4.30 million in December; 5.65 million barrels in January; and 4.66 million barrels in February. March is around six million. Our May allocation is about 6.15 million barrels, not up to 7 million,” the official said, appealing to the government to allocate more crude to the refinery.
The refinery had previously lamented that local crude producers were refusing to supply feedstock, forcing it to rely more on imported crude. It also stated that it receives only five cargoes monthly from NNPC instead of the 13 cargoes required.
Meanwhile, an NNPC official said the company is leveraging its global crude trading network to source third-party supply for the refinery at competitive international market rates.
Economist Bismarck Rewane has advised the Federal Government to sell crude at a fixed price to the Dangote refinery to prevent high fuel prices from triggering further inflation.
