Dangote Doubts NNPC Refineries Will Ever Work Again
Aliko Dangote, President of the Dangote Group, has expressed skepticism about the possibility of Nigeria’s state-owned refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna ever functioning effectively again, despite the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) spending approximately $18 billion on their maintenance.
Speaking on July 10, 2025, while hosting Global CEO Africa members from the Lagos Business School at the Dangote Petroleum Refinery in Lekki, Lagos, Dangote highlighted the persistent challenges facing the NNPC refineries.
Dangote noted that his 650,000-barrel-per-day refinery dedicates over 50% of its output to Premium Motor Spirit (petrol), while the NNPC refineries, even when operational, allocated only 22% to petrol.
Reflecting on a failed 2007 attempt to acquire the refineries, he recalled, “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.”
He criticized the NNPC’s turnaround maintenance, comparing it to modernizing a 40-year-old car with outdated technology. “(The turnaround maintenance) is like you trying to modernise a car that was built 40 years ago, when technology and everything have changed. Even if you change the engine, the body will not be able to take the shock of that new technology engine,” he stated.
Dangote’s remarks echo former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s 2024 comments, where he claimed NNPC knew the refineries were unviable. Obasanjo said, “I ran to him (Yar’Adua), 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’.” He added, “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 civilized society, those people should be in jail.”
Obasanjo further noted in January 2025 that over $2 billion had been squandered on the NNPC refineries with no results, citing Shell’s refusal to manage them due to their poor condition. He used a Yoruba proverb to critique exaggerated claims about their performance: “They say that after he has harvested 100 heaps of yams, he will also have 100 heaps of lies. You know what that means.”
The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) has called the NNPC refineries a drain on the economy, urging their privatization. Significant expenditures include $1.4 billion for Port Harcourt, $897 million for Warri, and $586 million for Kaduna in 2021, plus $396.33 million on turnaround maintenance from 2013 to 2017.
Recent shutdowns, including Port Harcourt’s 60,000-barrel-per-day facility in May 2025 and Warri’s in January 2025, have intensified calls to sell these facilities to fund modular refineries.
