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Africa’s largest refinery, owned by Nigerian businessman Aliko Dangote, began delivering its first gasoline shipments on Sunday, after eight years of construction and months of negotiations.
About 500 tanker trucks from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation headed to the refinery, located about 70 kilometers east of Lagos, Nigeria’s economic capital, on Sunday, to transport 25 million litres of gasoline, also known as “Premium Motor Spirit,” an AFP correspondent reported.
The massive refinery can process 650,000 barrels per day at full capacity and cost about $20 billion to build, more than double the amount expected when the project began.
The refinery is expected to meet Nigeria’s entire gasoline needs when fully operational, and will enable Africa’s most populous country to export oil derivatives abroad.
Nigeria has so far relied almost entirely on imported petrol and diesel due to poor domestic refining capacity despite being Africa’s largest oil producer.
The country has four state-owned refineries (in Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna) but none of them are operational anymore.
Nigerian Finance Minister Wale Edun hailed the “historic event.”
“Today, we have passed an important milestone towards achieving energy self-sufficiency in Nigeria,” he said during his visit to the refinery.
Dangote Industries Vice Chairman Devakumar Edwin explained that 44% of the refinery’s output will meet the country’s needs and 56% of the output will be exported, generating foreign exchange inflows.
This mega refinery is expected to enable Nigeria to overcome recurring gasoline shortages and lower its prices.
Nigerians have seen the price of a litre of petrol at the pump rise from less than N200 to N850 in a year and a half, tripling after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came to power in May 2023 and ended fuel subsidies that had kept prices artificially low for decades.
Then in early September, prices suddenly rose by nearly 45%, making it unbearable for Nigerians as the country grapples with a serious economic crisis with inflation exceeding 33% in July.
Aliko Dangote, who was ranked by Forbes magazine in 2024 for the thirteenth consecutive year as “Africa’s richest man,” heads a group of companies operating in several sectors, including cement, sugar, and fertilizers.
Dangote fuel is expected to be available at stations from October 1.
