Claim: In a video published on Instagram, popular Afrobeats singer Seun Kuti called out the Chairman of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, saying the Federal Government spent $2bn to purchase a 20 per cent stake in Dangote Refinery, while the same amount was used to buy the entire Sinclair Refinery in America. He noted that both refineries have the same size.
He said, “Do you know how much the Federal Government put into the refinery? They gave $2bn. I did a live stream the day they announced they had given Dangote $2bn for 20 per cent of that refinery. That same day, Sinclair Oil in America sold the same size of refinery with rail tracks, trains, and other things for $2bn. The same Dangote has the audacity to come outside and say the government is sabotaging him.”
Findings
Seun Kuti is a popular Afrobeats artiste with a large following on social media. The live video, which he titled, “Organised abandonment, misinformation and miseducation” had been watched by more than 160,000 of his Instagram followers and shared by different blogs.
According to information from the official website of Dangote Group, the Dangote Refinery is the world’s biggest single-train facility which has 1,100 kilometres to handle 3bn Standard Cubic Foot of gas per day. The refinery, built by Aliko Dangote, was launched on May 22, 2023, but commenced operation on Friday, January 12, 2024, after taking delivery of six million barrels of crude oil.
Situated in the Lekki Free Zone near Lagos, the refinery has 4.78bn litres of storage capacity for refined petroleum products and is designed to produce up to 50m litres of gasoline and 15m litres of diesel a day. The refinery is a 650,000bpd integrated project.
However, the Sinclair Oil Company operates an 85,000 barrel-per-day refinery in Sinclair, Wyoming, and a 25,000bpd refinery in Casper, Wyoming. The two refineries (110,000 bdp) process crude from the Rocky Mountain region, while the Sinclair operation also runs Canadian crude.