Chief Executive Patrick Pouyanne announced that TotalEnergies has signed its first supply deal with Nigeria’s Dangote Refinery.
The action took place during a meeting with Aliko Dangote, but without details of what the agreement entails.
“We met this morning; we made the first deal between both of us,” Pouyanne told a panel at the Africa CEO Forum in Kigali, Rwanda. “The two CEOs met with our head of trading, and we found a way to convince them to make a deal,” he added.
Dangote has been trying to secure crude supplies for his 650,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery, the largest in Africa and Europe, when it reaches full capacity.
In May, the company put out a tender for two million barrels of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) Midland crude every month for a year starting in July, a tender document seen by Reuters showed.
The oil refinery, which started production in January, cost $20 billion to build. Dangote aims to reverse Nigeria’s reliance on imports for fuel and other refined products, even though the country is Africa’s biggest oil producer.
Dangote said the refinery had enough gasoline, diesel, and aviation fuel to supply the African continent and export to Brazil.
“We started producing jet fuel; we are producing diesel; and by next month, we’ll be producing gasoline. What that will do, it will be able to take most African crudes,” Dangote told the panel.
He added that their capacity exceeds Nigeria’s needs and will supply West, Central, and Southern Africa.
