Aliko Dangote, chairman of the Dangote Group, has lamented that international oil companies in Nigeria are not prepared to supply crude oil to his refinery with a capacity of 650,000 barrels.
In a CNN interview, Dangote claimed that the multinational oil corporations were accustomed to selling crude for foreign exchange and were not prepared to cease.
He added that despite the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd’s best efforts, the IOCs prefer to sell their products abroad.
He stated:
The business magnate claimed that Africa’s lack of growth was due to the continent’s sale of raw materials and purchase of completed items by the West.
He lamented that some people who benefited from oil import did not want the refinery to be successful.
The refinery recently inked a contract to acquire 24 million barrels of crude oil from the US.
Dangote said that the refinery will produce roughly 21 million barrels of crude oil from Nigeria each month and that 21 ships would no longer be used to import or export crude into Africa.
Dangote disclosed that he would not have opted for a refinery if he had known what it entails.
When asked if he had started making money from the refinery, he replied:
In an earlier report by TimesNow.com.ng, Dangote addressed by no refining facility has been created in Africa in the previous 35 years.
In a clip from an interview with CNN, Dangote stated that even if he had constructed a refinery worth $19 billion, he would have changed his mind if he had realised ahead of time how challenging it would be to build a facility that scale on the continent.
He maintained that Africans would need to develop the continent on their own, as foreign investments and aid would not be sufficient to build Africa.
Proofreading by James Ojo Adakole, journalist and copy editor at TimesNow.com.ng.
Source: TimesNow.com.ng
