Aliko Dangote, President of the Dangote Refinery, announced that the refinery is set to commence petrol production in August 2024.
This follows the resolution of its crude oil supply issues with the assistance of the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and the federal government.
Dangote shared this update with senior journalists in Lagos on Sunday, noting that the crude supply challenges, which had impacted the refinery’s petrol production, were resolved last week after government intervention.
The journalists were on a guided tour of the refinery, located at the Lekki Free Trade Zone in Lagos.
Recently, Dangote Industries Limited (DIL) raised concerns over attempts by international oil companies (IOCs) to obstruct their efforts to purchase crude for the refinery.
“While the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) is doing its best to allocate crude to us, the IOCs are deliberately and willfully frustrating our efforts to buy local crude,” stated Devakumar Edwin, Vice President of Oil and Gas at DIL, to energy editors in June.
“It seems their objective is to ensure that our Petroleum Refinery fails. They either demand exorbitant premiums or claim that crude is unavailable.
“At one point, we paid $6 above the market price. This forced us to reduce our output and import crude from countries as far as the US, thereby increasing our production costs.”
