The leadership of the House of Representatives, led by the Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas, has visited the $ 20 billion Dangote Petroleum refinery in Lagos State.
The lawmakers arrived at the refinery located in the Lekki Free Trade Zone in Lagos around 11 am on Saturday and were received by the President of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, and top executives of the company.
The lawmakers are expected to take a tour of the 650,000 barrels per day refinery during the visit and have a conversation about the plan to start the supply of petrol next month.
The visit marks the second time federal lawmakers will visit the refinery this year following the visit of the Senate leadership, led by Senate President Godswill Akpaio, to the facility in June.
The lawmaker’s visit comes days after the Chief Executive of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Authority, Farouk Ahmed, claimed that the diesel produced by Dangote refinery contains a high sulphur content of about 1,000 parts per million.
Ahmed also stated that the Federal Government would not stop the importation of petroleum products, saying Nigeria cannot depend on one 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, stating that it is still at the pre-commissioning stage.
“The claim by some media houses that there were steps to scuttle the Dangote refinery is not so. The Dangote refinery is still in the pre-commissioning stage. It has not been licensed yet; we haven’t licensed them yet. They are still in the pre-commissioning. I think they have about 45 per cent completion,” he declared.
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 giving import licences to other marketers so as to be the only fuel supplier in Nigeria.
“We cannot rely heavily on one refinery to feed the nation, because Dangote is requesting that we should suspend or stop importation of all petroleum products, especially AGO and direct all marketers 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 monopoly,” he stressed.
Speaking about quality, he said, “So, in terms of quality, currently, the AGO quality 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 to 1,200ppm. So, in terms of quality, their product is much more inferior to the imported quality,” he alleged.
