The Federal Government, through the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, is expecting fresh reports to confirm the real sulphur content of the diesel produced by the Dangote refinery as the company debunked claims of inferior fuel production.
The NMDPRA spokesman, George Ene-Ita, in an interview with The PUNCH on Sunday, said the agency had done its job and would not engage in a media fight with anybody over the claims made by the NMDPRA Chief Executive, Farouk Ahmed, that Dangote’s diesel has more sulphur content than imported one.
According to Ene-Ita, the authority has about 15 engineers and scientists embedded in the Dangote refinery, whose fresh report about the refinery’s sulphur content will be out on Monday (today).
The PUNCH reported Ahmed as alleging that the diesel from the Dangote refinery contains high sulphur content.
Reacting to Dangote’s allegations that the NMDPRA was giving licences to some traders to import dirty fuel into Nigeria last week, Ahmed argued that it was the Dangote fuel that had a larger content of sulphur.
He also said the refinery, which has been selling diesel and aviation fuel in Nigeria for months, had yet to be licensed, stating that it was 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,” Ahmed declared.
The NMDPRA boss warned that Nigeria could not 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, they are producing between 650 to 1,200ppm. So, in terms of quality, their product is much more inferior to the imported quality,” he alleged.
Reacting during a tour of the refinery by members of the House of Representatives led by the Speaker, Hon. Tajudeen Abbas, over the weekend, Dangote asserted that products refined at the world’s largest single train refinery are of superior quality compared to the imported fuel.
The speaker and other members had observed the testing of Automotive Gas Oil from two petrol stations alongside the same taken from the Dangote refinery.
The diesel samples were procured from two well-known filling stations near Eleko junction along the Lekki-Epe Expressway, Lagos, by the lawmakers.
The Chairman of the House Committee on Downstream, Ikeagwunon Ugochinyere, and Chairman of the House Committee on Midstream, Okojie Odianosen, oversaw the collection of samples from the Mild Hydro Cracking unit of the Dangote refinery for testing of all the samples.
The Dangote laboratory tests were said to have revealed that Dangote’s diesel had a sulphur content of 87.6 ppm while the other two samples showed sulphur levels exceeding 1,800 ppm and 2,000 ppm respectively.
