President and Chief Executive Officer of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, has said that the four refineries owned by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation NNPC Limited would not attract buyers even if they were put up for sale, citing regulatory failures and a poor investment climate.
Dangote attributed the crisis in Nigeria’s downstream petroleum sector to regulatory mismanagement during the previous administration.
“During the last administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, there was a big mistake that was made by putting a trader as a regulator. A trader can never be a regulator, and I think that was a mismatch,” Dangote said during a briefing on Sunday in Lagos.
According to him, this mismatch created an unfavourable environment for investment and discouraged both local and foreign investors.
“The crisis that we’re facing is actually due to this, and what is actually paining me is that the country is paying a bigger price,” he said.
Dangote warned that the current regulatory environment makes refinery investment unattractive.
“The higher price is that nobody will come and invest in this sort of thing. Even if the NNPC today wants to sell the refineries, there can never be a buyer. Why? Because the environment is not conducive for anybody to come and put his money and set up a refinery,” he added.
Nigeria’s state owned refineries located in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna with a combined capacity of about 445000 barrels per day have suffered years of underperformance despite repeated funding for turnaround maintenance leading to continued reliance on imported fuel.