An official reveals the 650,000 barrels per day Dangote Refinery has started processing gasoline. Its products would only be purchased by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporate Limited (NNPC Ltd), a corporate executive was quoted by Reuters on Monday.
Reuters cited the Vice president at Dangote Industries Limited, Devakumar Edwin, stating: “We are testing the product (petrol), and subsequently, it will start flowing into the product tanks.”
The precise launch date of the product on the local market was not specified by Mr. Edwin. He clarified that the gasoline will only be purchased by Nigeria’s sole importer, NNPC Ltd.
He had this to say: “If no one is buying it, we will export it as we have been exporting our aviation jet fuel and diesel.”
The new facility may make it easier for NNPC Ltd to supply the local market and may also assist in alleviating the gasoline crisis that has affected major Nigerian cities in recent months.
Anthony Chiejina, the company’s Group Chief Branding and Communications Officer, confirmed the development in a brief statement to the local news brand on Monday night.
According to him: “Yes, it’s true we have commenced processing.”
The corporation set deadlines for its domestic gasoline supply in recent months, but the deadlines were not met, BrandSpur Corporate news desk reports.
Aliko Dangote, the president of the Dangote Group, announced in June that gasoline produced at the refinery would be available for purchase in July.
When a Senate delegation led by Senate President Godswill Akpabio visited the facility, Dangote revealed this information. He clarified that the reason for the date modification was a delay that caused the original June proposal to be rescheduled for mid-July.
Again, in July, Dangote said petrol production in the oil refinery was disrupted because of the fire incident at the refinery.
According to him, while speaking with journalists 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.”
But the refinery in August asserted that fuel generated on the premises will be for sale by the end of the month.
Mr. Chiejina responded to a question about why the refinery has not started providing domestic supplies by the deadline of August 12 by saying, “We said August, and today is 12 August. Just wait; this is August”.
The Dangote Group and Nigeria’s petroleum authorities have been at odds for some time now about who controls the downstream petroleum market. The Dangote Group complained in June that a few foreign oil companies were undermining the plant’s operations by either refusing to provide petroleum or selling it for more than the going rate.
It also ran in opposition to Nigerian energy industry regulators, such as the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Regulatory Authority, which asserted that diesel from the refiner had higher than permitted levels of sulfur content. Dangote was also charged by the regulators with trying to form a monopoly.
Dangote showed lawmakers who were touring the refinery to a laboratory where two distinct imported samples and refinery fuel were analyzed to disprove the claim. The diesel sample from the refinery had far less sulfur than the imported samples, according to the data accessed by BrandSpur.
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) gave NNPC Ltd instructions in July to negotiate a settlement with the Dangote refinery and other nearby refineries over the disagreement over the sale of crude oil to them.
Under President Bola Tinubu’s direction, the FEC further mandated that such sales of crude oil to refineries be made in naira and that refineries situated in Nigeria sell their refined goods to the Nigerian market in naira as well.
In January, the 650,000 barrels per day Dangote Petroleum Refinery started producing aviation fuel and diesel. The business declared that production had started and that six million barrels of crude oil had been delivered to the refinery at its two SPMs, which are located 25 kilometers offshore.
December 12, 2023, witnessed the 1st crude delivery,, and January 8, 2024, the 6th. The company with the receipt of an additional one million barrels of bonny light crude supplied by the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC), however, has kick-started the production of refined petroleum products
