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Says $18bn investment a waste
BY CHINYERE OBIORA, LAGOS – With the multiple Turnaround Maintenance (TAM) failure in recent times, President of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, says the possibility of government-owned Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna refineries ever functioning again is quite remote.
For the Africa’s richest man, it is a serious cause for concern that despite $18 billion spent on TAM, the refineries under the control of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), have remained comatose.
He said developments around the TAM do not present any hope that the refineries will ever jerk back to life and contribute to the nation’s economic growth and development.
Alhaji Dangote, who as addressing members of the Global CEO Africa from the Lagos Business School, after a tour of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery in Lekki, Lagos on Thursday, said; “The refineries that we bought before, which were owned by Nigeria, were doing about 22 per cent of PMS.
“We bought the refineries in January 2007. Then we had to return them to the government because there was a change of government.
“And the Managing Director at that time convinced Yar’adua that the refineries would work. They said they just gave them to us as a parting gift or so.
“And as of today, they have spent about $18 billion on those refineries, and they are still not working. And I don’t think, and I doubt very much if they will work”.
Highlighting the seeming futility in deploying TAM to revamp the refineries established about 40 years ago given the advancement in technology, the business mogul said; “(The Turnaround Maintenance) is like you trying to modernise a car that was built 40 years ago, when technology and everything have changed.”
According to him, “Even if you change the entire engine, the body will not be able to take the shock of that new technology engine”.
Last year, former President Obasanjo had expressed similar concerns that the NNPC was fully aware that it foes not have the capacity to operate and make the refineries functional.
Obasanjo said some investors, including Aliko Dangote, paid $750 million to take over the refineries; but his successor, late President Musa Yar’adua, aborted the transaction
According to Obasanjo; “I ran to him (Yar’Adua), and I said, ‘You know this is not right.’ He said, ‘Well, NNPC said they can do it.’ I said, ‘NNPC cannot do it.’ I told my successor that ‘the refineries, from what I heard and know, will not work, and when you want to sell them, you will not get anybody to buy them at $200m as scrap.’ And that is the situation we are in.
“So, why do we do this kind of thing to ourselves? NNPC knew that they could not do it, but they knew they could eat and carry on with the corruption that was going on in NNPC.
“When people were there to do it, they put pressure. In a civilised society, those people should be in jail.”
