'This must be done' - FG gives strict order to oil companies that refuse to sell crude to Dangote

The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission stated that it will mandate foreign oil corporations to provide crude oil to the Dangote oil refinery.

Olaide Shonola, the NUPRC spokesperson, stated that the commission was stepping in to guarantee that domestic crude sales to Dangote and other refineries would continue.

Shonola made this statement in response to the Dangote Group Chairman's assertion that foreign oil corporations were unwilling to supply the refinery with crude.

During a Tuesday interview with The PUNCH, Shonola stated that the NUPRC would issue unambiguous guidelines requiring the IOCs to sell to the Dangote refinery. He said, “We’ve been intervening and intervening.

I am sure you’re aware of a recent meeting with them on domestic crude oil supply. We will keep engaging them; NUPRC has been doing that. “I can’t say we will force them, but as the regulator, we can mandate.

And that’s what we are doing, giving clear directives that this must be done. We will just keep on engaging, and you will agree with me that most of these things have to be planned. We will keep on engaging. We will do our regulatory function in that area."

Aliko Dangote stated in a CNN interview that foreign oil companies in Nigeria were not prepared to supply crude oil to the refinery, which has a capacity of 650,000 barrels.

He claimed that the multinational oil corporations were accustomed to selling crude for cash and were not prepared to cease.

Despite the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd's best efforts, according to Dangote, the IOCs preferred to sell their products abroad.

“The NNPC is doing its best, but some of the IOCs, they are struggling to give us crude, everybody is used to exporting and nobody wants to stop exporting."

According to Dangote, the refinery would receive roughly 21 million barrels of crude oil from Nigeria each month, and 21 ships would no longer be used to import or export crude into Africa.