The Dangote Refinery has called on marketers to bring their trucks for loading of petrol, saying that it has over 310 million litres of petrol in its ranks.
The Vice President of the Dangote Group, Devakumar Edwin, said on Friday that marketers were allowed to bring any trucks for loading at the gantry, as the refinery has enough fuel for the local market and for export.
According to Edwin, some marketers may have raised the price of petrol in their filling stations, thinking that the Dangote refinery is not supplying products at the moment.
“So, this one is again a campaign to try to say the prices will go up. I can go and try to increase my filling station price; maybe Dangote is not supplying. Bring your tankers. We will load. Any number of tankers you bring, we’ll load. It’s a challenge I’m throwing today. No one can come and tell me I’m not loading. We can load any number of tankers you bring. So, you can see whether I have the capacity to produce or not.
“We have more than 310 million litres as of now,” he stressed.
On why the refinery reduced its fuel intake, Edwin said: “When the prices are a bit low, we buy a lot. When our stocks are going down, we buy a lot. But at the same time, if your inventory of crude is very high, nobody would like to lock so much money into their tanks, because its money locked in the form of crude oil. So, we reduce our inflow, which is what happened.”
He stated that this had nothing to do with the factory working or not working.
“They said we have problems. No factory works 100 per cent every day without a problem. But if there is a problem, whether it is going to affect your final production or not is a key issue. So, normally all these major businesses have what we call turnaround maintenance.
“That is why they go for once in two years or three years; a new refinery like this will go for once in five years. So, if there are problems which will affect the production, we take a turnaround maintenance. Take, for example, our fertiliser, which took a turnaround maintenance sometime last year. So, at that time, your product outflow definitely comes down.
“But here, as I was explaining, I have more than 310 million litres of PMS as of today inside my tanks, apart from the production which is coming out every day,” he said.
The report by Punch newspaper on Monday quoted Edwin as saying that the refinery has a capacity to supply the 100 per cent requirement of diesel, petrol, and aviation fuel needed in Nigeria and still exports almost 50 per cent of its production overseas.
“It’s a very large refinery. You can go and check with any engineer in the refining business: a 650,000-barrel refinery producing 94 per cent lighter product. Only 6 per cent comes as a carbon black feedstock, which is a heavier product. It’s not like our old Nigerian refineries, where a lot of low pour fuel oil, heavy fuel oil and all come in.
“This is 94 per cent of either PMS or AGO or JetA1. Our production of lighter products is very large, much, much more than Nigeria’s requirements. And we are producing. You went inside today. You saw the refinery working, and you can come and see our stock position,” he said.
GIK/APA