The president of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has said that Nigeria’s state-owned refineries, located in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna, may never operate properly again despite about $18 billion invested in their rehabilitation.

Alhaji Dangote disclosed this while hosting members of the Global CEO Africa, who visited the Dangote Petroleum Refinery yesterday.

He said the 650,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery was constructed after the government of late President Umar Yar’adua declined to sell the refineries to him.

He 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 $18bn on those refineries, and they are still not working. And I don’t think, and I doubt very much if they will work.”

“(The turnaround maintenance) is like you trying to modernise a car that was built 40 years ago, when technology and everything had changed. Even if you change the engine, the body will not be able to take the shock of that new technology engine.”

Recall that the former President Obasanjo had last year expressed similar comments, adding that the NNPC was aware that it could not operate the refineries.

He said some investors, including Aliko Dangote, paid $750 million to take over the refineries; however, his successor, Yar’adua, aborted the transaction.

He said, “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.”

Earlier this year, former President Obasanjo also said, “I was told not too long ago that since that time, more than $2bn has been squandered on the refineries, and they still will not work.

“If a company like Shell tells me what they told me, I will believe them. If anybody tells you now that it (the refinery) is working, why are they now with Aliko (Dangote)? And Aliko will make his refinery work; he will not only make it work, but he will also make it deliver.”