LAGOS, Nigeria (CHATNEWSTV) — The Dangote Petroleum Refinery, Africa’s largest refining complex, is awaiting a shipment of up to 12 million barrels of crude oil from the United States as it grapples with insufficient local crude supply, hindering its bid to reach full capacity.
The $20 billion Lekki-based refinery, which aims to produce 650,000 barrels per day (bpd) by June, is currently operating at approximately 500,000bpd. Supply issues from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) have forced the facility to turn to imports to meet its daily feedstock requirements.
“About 12 million barrels of crude have departed the US and should arrive in Nigeria by February,” a source familiar with the shipment told The Africa Report.
The NNPC, which is tasked with supplying 350,000bpd to the refinery out of Nigeria’s total domestic allocation of 450,000bpd, has struggled to meet this commitment.
“Importing crude from other countries instead of buying locally means that our crude stockpiles will have to be higher,” said Devakumar Edwin, Vice President for oil and gas at Dangote Industries.
The refinery has begun constructing eight additional storage tanks, which will increase its crude storage capacity by 41.67% to 3.4 billion liters. This move comes as the plant works to stockpile imported crude oil in anticipation of further local supply challenges.
In July, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu mandated the NNPC to sell crude oil to local refineries in naira. Despite this directive, experts note that the current output from the state-owned company falls short of meeting the refining needs of operational facilities in the country.
The refinery reportedly issued a term tender last year for the purchase of two million barrels of West Texas Intermediate Midland crude monthly for 12 months, totaling 24 million barrels.
Officials at the refinery remain optimistic about hitting full production capacity by mid-2025, provided crude supply bottlenecks are resolved.
