We Built Oil Refinery When No IOC Was Willing, Says Dangote Group’s Edwin

Peter Uzoho

The Vice President of Oil and Gas at Dangote Industries Limited, Mr. Devakumar Edwin, has taken a swipe at Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron as well as other international oil companies (IOCs), saying they were unable to build a multi-billion refinery in Nigeria like Dangote.

Edwin specifically said Dangote Refinery had done what Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, or other international oil companies can’t do by building a $20 billion plant in Nigeria.

He made the assertion  while receiving members of the Senate Committee on Trade and Investment at the refinery complex in Lekki, Lagos State.

Edwin told the senators, led by the Chairman of the Committee, Sadiq Umar, that Dangote Refinery, a Nigerian company, took up the challenge to build the largest single-train refinery in the world. He said about six companies in the world could do the same.

“Here, a Nigerian company took up the challenge that nobody, like Shell, Chevron or ExxonMobil, has ever done in any part of the world. So, the Nigerian company—Dangote Projects Limited—took up the challenge and built the refinery on time. And this is the world’s largest single-train refinery,” he said.

On his part, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Trade and Investment, Umar, assured the refinery of the National Assembly’s support. According to him, the $20 billion project is a national asset that must be protected.

Umar stated: “For us as legislators, you can rest assured that we know what you have done here; we know what it means to the country. We will do anything within our power to see how we can support you to succeed so that Nigeria can succeed.

“This investment we have seen here is an investment for the country and the world, not necessarily for Dangote himself. It is our responsibility to see what we need to do to encourage him.

“I am sure you can see a lot of actions in what the president has done to support him so that the country will be better for it.”

This comes as Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that the 650,000-barrel-per-day Dangote Refinery has resumed crude imports from the United States after three months to ramp up production capacity.

The development may not be unconnected to the inadequate supply of crude by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) despite the naira-for-crude-sales deal between the federal government and Dangote Refinery.