Group Executive Director of Dangote Industries Ltd, Devakumar Edwin, has disclosed that the Dangote Refinery will start petrol refining by November 2023 while diesel and jet fuel refining operations will commence by October 2023.
He disclosed this during an interview with S&P Global Commodity Insights.
He stated that the Dangote refinery will receive its first cargo of crude in the next two weeks and begin producing up to 370,000 barrels per day of diesel and jet fuel from October 2023.
Edwin further noted that by November 30, the refinery will start the phased ramp-up to 650,000 barrels per day of petrol.
“Right now, I’m ready to receive crude. We are just waiting for the first vessel. And so as soon as it comes in, we can start,” he stated.
On the issue of timeline change, Edwin revealed that the NNPCL had said they had committed their crude on a forward basis to someone else, so they didn’t have the crude immediately.
He noted that this is a temporary issue, and the refinery should run on exclusively Nigerian crude by November 2023.
According to him, the Nigerian oil will be purchased in US dollars, and not naira because it is in a free zone on the outskirts of Lagos but that NNPCL will supply some crude at knockdown prices due to its equity stake.
Edwin also said that the Dangote refinery can process most African crudes, apart from heavy Angolan grades as well as Middle Eastern Arab Light and even US light tight oil.
“We can take even some of the Russian grades… if the global system opens up to allow us to receive them. Basically, if you look at our production profile, 50% of my production will meet 100% of the requirements of the country.
“Excess gasoline – which will be 10 ppm sulfur Euro 5 quality — will be exported to other African markets as well as the US and South America, although the volumes will be relatively small. Meanwhile, jet fuel will be exported to Europe and diesel will be sold in sub-Saharan Africa.”
According to S&P, Edwin also said the Dangote refinery would be enormously beneficial to Nigeria by establishing a reliable supply of “environmentally friendly” refined products and bringing a huge amount of foreign exchange into the country.
He said the refinery will also ease a fuel supply crisis in import-dependent West Africa, where Nigeria’s recently scrapped fuel subsidy created a thriving illicit market for gasoline amid price fluctuations.
He also noted that the money coming back into the refinery business will go for further investments because the founder of the company, Aliko Dangote’s focus is always on Nigeria.
