Nigeria: Dangote Refinery Starts Petrol Production

Nigeria has begun producing petrol domestically for the first time in 28 years. The 650,000 barrels-per-day Dangote refinery in Lagos has completed its test production and is set to commence sales immediately.

This development is expected to provide significant relief to Nigerians who are currently facing severe petrol shortages across the country.

It has been confirmed that all necessary parameters for certifying the refinery’s operations have been successfully met by the facility, which is owned by Africa’s richest person, Aliko Dangote.

Despite spending billions of dollars on maintaining its four official refineries over the past two decades, Nigeria has been unable to make them operational.

Nigeria, which consumes around 66 million litres of petrol daily, currently spends over $10 billion annually on fuel imports.

The development is expected to save the country several billions of dollars in foreign exchange as well as enhance the local availability of the critical fuel heavily used by businesses and homes.

In the same vein, Africa’s largest oil refining facility, is on the brink of producing significant volumes of petrol and the fuel could be made available as early as this week, Bloomberg reported yesterday.

Describing it as a landmark moment with the potential to transform the global market for the fuel, the report quoting two sources, stated that product testing has started in earnest.

The giant new facility near the commercial hub of Lagos is on the verge of producing large amounts of the fuel and will be able to process 650,000 barrels a day of oil when at full capacity, turning more than half of that into petrol.

The ramp-up is likely to be welcomed within the country, given that the state oil company — Nigeria’s main importer of fuel — said its ability to supply gasoline is being disrupted by debt and rising prices, Bloomberg stressed.

Dangote’s production is expected to impact billions of dollars of trade in fuel markets regionally and beyond as Nigeria remains a global demand sink for the fuel, receiving almost 250,000 barrels a day in shipments last year, mostly from Europe, according to data from analytics firm Vortexa Ltd.