Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, announced that his refinery has obtained a licence to process over 300,000 barrels of Nigerian crude daily. The facility will soon commence the production of gasoline.
“We don’t want to start our refinery with foreign goods; we want to start with Nigerian crude,” Dangote said in an interview in Riyadh on the sidelines of the Saudi-Nigeria business roundtable, according to Bloomberg.
“We’re more than ready, and you will see our gasoline products soon,” he added.
The refinery was supposed to start production in August but missed that target, in addition to several others over the years. But Dangote insists that his refinery will start producing “very very soon.”
The refinery’s first priority is to supply gasoline to Nigeria before exporting it elsewhere, including the West African region, he said.
The Punch reported that the Dangote Petroleum Refinery was importing crude oil and expected its first cargo in about two weeks, according to the Executive Director of Dangote Group, Devakumar Edwin.
The report stated that though the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited trades crude oil on behalf of Nigeria, in an interview with S&P Global Commodity Insights at the time, Edwin revealed that the NNPCL had committed its crude to other entities.
The Dangote refinery boss did not disclose the other entities receiving the oil company’s crude, but the NNPCL had earlier disclosed in August that it had entered into a $3 billion crude oil-for-loan deal with the African Export-Import Bank.
The 650,000 barrel-a-day facility, which is expected to produce 27 million litres of diesel, 11 million litres of kerosene, and nine million litres of jet fuel, will receive crude from other producers in Nigeria as well as the country’s state oil company, said Dangote, whose fortune is estimated at $16.2 billion by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Nigeria increased its oil output by 60,000 barrels per day last month, reaching 1.49 million barrels per day—the highest in almost two years.
The West African nation has launched a new grade of crude called Nembe through a joint venture as the nation ramps up its oil output.
A joint venture between the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) and oil firm Aiteo Eastern E&P Co. Ltd. is set to manage and market the Nembe crude stream.
