The Chairman of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, has said his $20 billion 650,000 barrels per day Lagos-based refinery will crash the price of fuel as it reduced the price of diesel in Nigeria.
Dangote disclosed this at a recent Afreximbank Annual Meetings and AfriCaribbean Trade & Investment Forum in Nassau, The Bahamas.
Asked to speak on whether or not his refinery would crash the pump price of petrol, which sells at an average of N700 per liter, Dangote gave no affirmative answer, explaining how the price of diesel fell from 1,700 to N1,200 when his diesel flooded the Nigerian market.
He noted that his refinery currently has 4.78 billion liters of storage capacity for refined petroleum products.
On sabotage of his refinery, Aliko Dangote said; “I didn’t know that the mafia in oil are stronger than the mafia in drugs. I can tell you that. Yes, it’s a fact. The local and foreign mafia tried several times to sabotage the refinery from coming to fruition.”
He added; “In a system where for 35 years people are used to counting good money, and all of a sudden they see that the days of counting that money have come to an end, you don’t expect them to pray for you. Of course, you expect them to fight back.”
Aliko Dangote stated further; “And I think that is the process that we’re now really going through. But the truth is that, yes, the country, the sub-region, and also the continent, sub-Saharan Africa, need this refinery. So, you expect them to fight through non-supply of crude and non-purchase of the product.”