Aliko Dangote, the chairman of the Dangote Group, has announced that his $20 billion, 650,000 barrel-per-day refinery in Lagos will cause the price of gasoline to soar, lowering the cost of diesel in Nigeria.
At the recent Afreximbank Annual Meetings and AfriCaribbean Trade & Investment Forum in Nassau, The Bahamas, Dangote made this revelation.
When asked if his refinery will lower the average pump price of gasoline, which is N700 per litre, Dangote declined to comment, citing the price of diesel falling from N1,700 to N1,200 as a result of his fuel flooding the Nigerian market.
He mentioned that the present capacity of his refinery to store refined petroleum products is 4.78 billion litres.
In his words, he said:
“The issue of gasoline is certainly a different issue. That one is being dealt with by the government. But let me give you an example. In diesel, which the industries, transporters and everybody consume; when we first started, it was N1,700, and the dollar conversion was about N1,200 then. Immediately when we started, within two weeks we brought down the price to N1,000. We took it from N1,700 to N1,200 and from N1,200 to N1,700, we have given more than a 60 percent drop in price.
“With the currency now back up to about N1,500 per dollar, the price is still below N1,200. That’s a big improvement, from N1,700 to N1,200. And the diesel is available, we are not living from hand to mouth anymore,” Dangote replied when asked about a possible petrol price cut.
“The country doesn’t have strategic reserves in terms of petrol, which is very dangerous. But in our plant now, when you came, we had only 4.78 billion liters of various tankage capacity. But right now, we’re adding another 600 million.
“So effectively, as we go forward, the refinery will be the strategic reserve of the country in terms of petroleum products,” he noted.
Dangote alleged that the reason why international oil companies refused to sell crude oil to his refinery was that they did not want him to succeed.
“And I think that is the process that we’re now really going through. But the truth is that, yes, the country, the sub-region, and also the continent, of sub-Saharan Africa, need this refinery. So, you expect them to fight through non-supply of crude, non-purchase of the product, but I think it’s all temporary. We’ll get there.”
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