The Dangote Petroleum Refinery is awaiting up to 12 million barrels of crude oil from the United States, the Africa Report reported on Monday.
The refinery resorted to crude importation as local supply challenges hindered the new $20bn refinery’s push to reach full refining capacity.
Recall that the refinery plans to reach its 650,000 barrels per day capacity in June this year.
However, low local crude supply from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited is currently a challenge to this plan to ramp up daily production.
The 12 million barrels of crude has already left the United States and will land in Nigeria next month, according to the report.
“About 12 million barrels of crude have departed the US and should arrive in Nigeria by February,” an insider source told The Africa Report.
The Dangote Petroleum Refinery is importing more crude oil as supply from the NNPC becomes insufficient for fuel production at the $20bn Lekki-based facility.
Officials at the plant said the facility has ramped up production to about 500,000 barrels per day, with the target of hitting the 650,000bpd mark by June this year.
While affirming that the naira-for-crude deal is still on as directed by President Bola Tinubu last year, sources told our correspondent that the facility will have to import more crude to meet its target.
The NNPC is reportedly struggling to supply 350,000bpd to the Dangote refinery from the 450,000bpd crude meant for Nigeria’s local consumption.
With its current production capacity of 500,000bpd, officials said there is a need to look beyond the shores of Nigeria for the feedstock.
It was said that the feedstock needed by the refinery daily cannot be solely supplied by the state-owned oil company, NNPC.
According to the crude oil production forecast of producing oil companies and the refining requirement of functional refineries in Nigeria signed by the Chief Executive of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, Gbenga Komolafe, the Dangote refinery would require 550,000 barrels of a blend of Nigerian crude oil daily, 17.05 million barrels monthly, and 99.55 million barrels between January and June 2025.
The Dangote refinery is already building eight more tanks to store imported crude. The facility is planning to stockpile imported crude oil as local supplies become unreliable.
Officials of the refinery were quoted as saying that low crude supply from the NNPC “is driving import dependence.”
The building of eight additional tanks will see crude storage capacity at the refinery jump by 41.67 per cent to 3.4 billion litres.
“Importing crude from other countries instead of buying locally means that our crude stockpiles will have to be higher,” the Vice President in charge of the oil and gas business at Dangote Industries, Devakumar Edwin, was quoted as having said recently.
