Aliko Dangote, chairman of Dangote Industries Limited, says the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited’s $1 billion investment in the refinery is a drop in the ocean.
On December 16, NNPC said its $1 billion crude-backed loan was instrumental in supporting the refinery during liquidity challenges.
Responding, Dangote refinery denied experiencing liquidity challenges when the national oil company invested $1 billion to support the plant’s construction.
In an Arise TV documentary video on Monday, the billionaire said the contribution was a fragment of investments in the refinery.
“In 2021, when we signed the agreement, even if you give us $1 billion, $1 billion is a drop in the ocean in a $20 billion refinery,” Dangote said.
“When NNPC said ‘give us one more year, we want to change the agreement, we would rather pay you cash,’ because people don’t really understand this issue about $2 deduction on the crude.
“Can we make sure that there’s clarity around it? So what do you want? So they said they would pay us cash, and we should give them one more year.
“We gave them one more year. So from June last year to June this year. So on June 4th or 5th, I called NNPC and they gave us a week.”
Dangote said sometime later, the NNPC decided to back out of the transaction abruptly when the payment was due.
“I said, okay, fine. We just walked away and we just continued. But we still went ahead, we finished our refinery. Our refinery is operating,” he said.
