A fire outbreak yesterday erupted at the Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) at the Dangote refinery in Ibeju Lekki, a suburb in Lagos State. ETP is a type of waste treatment method designed to purify industrial for its reuse.
Multiple sources at the refinery confirmed the incident to Daily Sun.
The Dangote refinery is a 650,000 barrels per day capacity plant which produces fertiliser, diesel and Jet A1. Production of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), popularly called petrol, is scheduled to begin next month.
However, a statement by Dangote Industries Limited (DIL), Chief Branding and Communications Officer, Mr. Anthony Chiejina, said the firm swiftly contained the minor fire incident at ETP.
‘’There is no cause for alarm as the refinery is operating and there is no recorded injury or body harm to any of our staff on duty.”
The fire incident is coming less than a week after DIL accused International Oil Companies(IOCs) operating in the country of sabotaging the refinery operations through what it described as crude oil price manipulation.
Speaking at a one-day training for Energy Editors organised by the Dangote Group in Lagos at the weekend, Vice President, Oil and Gas, DIL, Mr. Devakumar Edwin, said the IOCs are deliberately and willfully frustrating the refinery’s efforts to buy local crude by jerking up high premium price above the market price, thereby forcing it to import crude from countries as far as United States, with its attendant high costs.
“The Federal Government issued 25 licences to build refinery and we are the only one that delivered on that promise. In effect, we deserve every support from the Government. It is good to note that from the start of production, more than 3.5 billion litres, which represents 90 per cent of our production, have been exported. We are calling on the Federal Government and regulators to give us the necessary support in order to create jobs and prosperity for the nation.”
According to him: “While the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) are trying their best to allocate the crude for us, the IOCs are deliberately and willfully frustrating our efforts to buy the local crude.
‘‘It seems that the IOCs’objective is to ensure that our petroleum refinery fails. It is either they are deliberately asking for ridiculous/humongous premium or, they simply state that crude is not available. At some point, we paid $6 over and above the market price. This has forced us to reduce our output as well as import crude from countries as far as the US, increasing our cost of production.
It appears that the objective of the IOCs is to ensure that Nigeria remains a country which exports crude oil and imports refined Petroleum Products. They (IOCs) are keen on exporting the raw materials to their home countries, creating employment and wealth for their countries, adding to their GDP, and dumping the expensive refined products into Nigeria – thus making us to be dependent on imported products.
It is the same strategy the multinationals have been adopting in every commodity, making Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa to be facing unemployment and poverty, while they create wealth for themselves at our expense. This is exploitation – pure and simple. Unfortunately, the country is also playing into their hands by continuing to issue import licences, at the expense of our economy and at the cost of the health of the Nigerians who are exposed to carcinogenic products.’’
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