Dangote refinery begins petrol processing – Official

The 650,000 barrels per day Dangote Refinery has begun the processing of petrol, an official has said.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) would buy its products exclusively, Reuters reported Monday, quoting an official of the company.

“We are testing the product (petrol), and subsequently, it will start flowing into the product tanks,” Devakumar Edwin, a vice president at Dangote Industries Limited, was quoted by Reuters as saying.

Mr Edwin did not say exactly when the product would hit the local market.

He explained that NNPC Ltd, Nigeria’s sole importer, would buy its gasoline exclusively.

“If no one is buying it, we will export it as we have been exporting our aviation jet fuel and diesel,” Mr Edwin said.

The recent development could ease NNPC Ltd’s struggle to supply the local market and help address the fuel scarcity that has hit major cities across Nigeria in recent months.

The company’s Group Chief Branding and Communications Officer, Anthony Chiejina, confirming the development in a short response to PREMIUM TIMES on Monday evening, said, “Yes, it’s true we have commenced processing.”

In recent months, the company had set dates for its domestic petrol supply, but the timelines were unmet.

In June, the President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, said petrol, refined at the refinery, will hit the market in July.

Mr Dangote, who disclosed this when he received a Senate delegation led by Senate President Godswill Akpabio on a tour of the facility at the time, explained that the date change was because of a delay that prompted the shift from the initially proposed date of June to mid-July.

Again, in July, Mr Dangote said petrol production in the refinery was disrupted because of the fire incident at the refinery.

“PMS was supposed to be out by July, but we had a fire incident. The incident disrupted us for a few days, but latest 10 or 12 of August, PMS will be ready,” Mr Dangote said while addressing journalists at the refinery at the time.

Meanwhile, in August, the refinery insisted that petrol, refined at the refinery, will hit the market by the end of August.

When asked why the refinery is yet to commence domestic supply at its stipulated date of 12 August, Mr Chiejina said, “We said August, and today is 12 August. Just wait; this is August.

In recent months, the Dangote Group and the petroleum regulators in Nigeria have been at loggerheads over the control of the petroleum downstream market.

In June, the Dangote Group accused some international oil companies of sabotaging the plant’s operations by refusing to supply crude or offering oil at higher premiums than market prices.

It also clashed with the regulators of the Nigerian energy industry, including the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Regulatory Authority, which claimed diesel from the refiner has sulphur content levels above the allowed threshold. The regulators also accused Dangote of seeking to be a monopoly.

In refuting the allegation, Mr Dangote took lawmakers visiting the refinery to a laboratory within the plant, where diesel from the refinery was tested alongside two different imported samples.

The results showed that the refinery’s diesel sample had much lower sulphur than the imported ones.

In July, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) directed NNPC Ltd to engage the Dangote refinery and other local refineries to resolve the dispute over the sale of crude oil to them.

The FEC, presided over by President Bola Tinubu, also directed that such crude oil sales to the refineries be made in naira and that the refineries located in Nigeria should also sell their refined products to the Nigerian market in naira.

The refinery

The 650,000 barrels per day Dangote Petroleum Refinery commenced diesel and aviation fuel production in January.

Announcing the commencement of production, the company said the refinery had received six million barrels of crude oil at its two SPMs 25 kilometres from the shore.

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The first crude delivery was done on 12 December 2023, and the sixth cargo was delivered on 8 January.

The company made a further move towards the commencement of the production of refined petroleum products with the receipt of an additional one million barrels of bonny light crude supplied by the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC Ltd).