The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has directed the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) to sell crude oil to Dangote Refinery and other modular refineries in Naira.
This decision was reached at the FEC meeting on Monday, with the aim to ensure the stability of the pump price of refined fuel and the dollar-Naira exchange rate.
The Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Zacch Adedeji was quoted to have disclosed this shortly after the meeting presided by President Bola Tinubu.
He expressed delight that the measures would reduce the strain on the country’s foreign exchange spending and stabilise the pump price of petroleum products.
Adedeji said that the directive to the NNPC was with immediate effect to boost domestic production of refined petroleum products in the country.
Dangote Refinery at the moment requires 15 cargoes of crude, at a cost of $13.5 billion yearly. NNPC has committed to supply four. But the FEC has approved that the 450,000 barrels meant for domestic consumption be offered in Naira to Nigerian refineries, using the Dangote refinery as pilot.
FEC said, Afreximbank and other settlement banks in Nigeria will facilitate the trade between Dangote and NNPC Limited.
Recall that the Vice President, Oil and Gas, at Dangote Industries Limited (DIL), Devakumar Edwin, recently accused the International Oil Companies (IOCs) in Nigeria of doing everything to frustrate the survival of Dangote Oil Refinery and Petrochemicals.
Mr.Edwin said the IOCs are deliberately and wilfully frustrating the refinery’s efforts to buy local crude by jerking up high premium price above the market price, thereby forcing it to import crude from countries as far as United States, with its attendant high costs.
He said,“It seems that the IOCs’ objective is to ensure that our Petroleum Refinery fails. 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…
“It appears that the objective of the IOCs is to ensure that Nigeria remains a country which exports Crude Oil and imports refined Petroleum Products. They(IOCs) are keen on exporting the raw materials to their home countries,creating employment and wealth for their countries, adding to their GDP, and dumping the expensive refined products into Nigeria – thus making us to be dependent on imported products”, he said.
