In a big boost towards achieving Nigeria’s energy refining capacity and security, Nigeria’s Dangote refinery has received its next one-million-barrel crude oil cargo from Shell International Trading and Shipping Company Limited (STASCO), bringing the total to three million barrels at the facility’s Single-Point Mooring.

It was also gathered by the ARISE NEWS team that the fourth shipment of crude is on the way.

The company, gearing up to commence operations at 350,000 bpd, is scheduled to start production of diesel and aviation fuel by Mid- January 2024 in which Premium Motor Spirit production is to follow. 

Dangote Petroleum Refinery has the capacity to meet 100% of the Nigeria’s requirement of all refined products, gasoline, diesel, kerosene, and aviation jet, and also have surplus of each of these products for export.

Earlier this month, the $20bn refinery received its first crude of 950,000-barrel cargo from Nigeria’s Agbami crude berthed at Dangote’s offshore crude receiving terminal in Lekki at about 7pm on December 7, marking the initiation of crude supplies for the refinery’s operations.

The tanker chartered by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), symbolised the initial crude supply to Dangote’s state-of-the-art refinery as it geared up to initiate production.

The NNPC, owning a 20% stake in the refinery, recently entered an agreement to supply 6 million barrels of crude oil as feedstock to the Dangote refinery in December, aiming to jumpstart operations.

The owner, Aliko Dangote had earlier stated that the Dangote Refinery, will fully come online with the refining of 650, 000 barrels per day by the end of 2024.

Dangote, in an interview in November, also said that the refinery would start with refining Nigerian crude, insisting that the refinery’s first priority is to supply petrol to Nigeria before exporting elsewhere, including the West African region.

“We don’t want to start our refinery with foreign goods, we want to start with the Nigerian crude.

We’re more than ready and you will see our gasoline products soon.”

The refinery situated on the outskirts of Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial hub, had faced delays since its announcement in 2013, despite substantial installation progress made in 2019.

In September 2023, the refinery announced that it will start producing diesel and kerosene in October 2023 and gasoline one month later.

In October, it was clear that the refinery would not yet be able to start operations because the supply of crude oil was stalling, which caused considerable public reaction.

On 25 November, a new date of December 2023 was given for the start of operations, with the refinery expecting a delivery of 6 million barrels of crude oil in December.

Lillian Jijingi. Chioma Kalu