The 650,000 barrel-per-day Dangote refinery has started processing gasoline, an official said.
Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) would exclusively purchase its products, Reuters reported on Monday, citing a company official.
“We are testing the product (petrol) and thereafter it will start flowing into the product tanks,” Devakumar Edwin, vice president of Dangote Industries Limited, was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Mr Edwin did not say exactly when the product will hit the local market.
He explained that NNPC Ltd, the sole importer from Nigeria, would exclusively purchase its gasoline.
“If no one buys it, we will export it like we have been doing with our jet fuel and diesel,” Edwin said.
The recent development could ease NNPC Ltd's struggle to supply the local market and help address the fuel shortage that has hit major cities in Nigeria in recent months.
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Group Brand and Communications Director Anthony Chiejina confirmed the development in a brief response to PREMIUM TIMES on Monday evening, saying, “Yes, it is true that we have started processing.”
In recent months, the company had set dates for the supply of gasoline nationwide, but the deadlines were not met.
In June, Dangote Group Chairman Aliko Dangote said gasoline 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 change of date was due to a delay which resulted in the shift from the initially proposed date of June to mid-July.
Again in July, Mr. Dangote said that gasoline production at the refinery was disrupted due to the fire at the refinery.
“The PMS was supposed to be ready by July but a fire broke out which disrupted us for a few days but by August 10 or 12 at the latest, the PMS will be ready,” Dangote said while addressing reporters at the refinery at the time.
Meanwhile, in August, the refinery insisted that gasoline refined at the refinery will reach the market by the end of August.
Asked why the refinery has not yet started domestic supply on the stipulated date of August 12, Mr Chiejina said: “We said August, and today is August 12. Just wait; we are in August.
In recent months, the Dangote Group and Nigerian oil regulators have been at odds over control of the oil 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 premiums higher than market prices.
He also clashed with Nigerian energy industry regulators, including the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Regulatory Authority, which claimed that the refinery’s diesel has sulphur content levels above the permitted threshold. The regulators also accused Dangote of trying to become a monopoly.
To refute the allegation, Mr Dangote took the visiting lawmakers to a laboratory inside the plant, where diesel from the refinery was analysed along with two different imported samples.
The results showed that the refinery's diesel sample had much less sulfur than the imported ones.
In July, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) ordered NNPC Ltd to contact the Dangote refinery and other local refineries to resolve the dispute over the sale of crude oil to them.
The FEC, chaired by President Bola Tinubu, also directed that such sales of crude oil to refineries be made in naira and that refineries located in Nigeria should also sell their refined products to the Nigerian market in naira.
The refinery
The Dangote oil refinery, with a capacity of 650,000 barrels per day, began producing diesel and jet fuel in January.
Announcing the start of production, the company said the refinery had received six million barrels of crude oil at its two SPMs 25 kilometres off the coast.
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The first delivery of crude oil was made on December 12, 2023, and the sixth shipment was delivered on January 8.
The company has taken a step closer to commencing production of refined petroleum products with the receipt of an additional one million barrels of light crude oil supplied by the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC Ltd).