The Executive Director of Dangote Group, Devakumar Edwin has stated that the Dangote Refinery will start diesel and jet fuel refining operations by October 2023 and petrol refining by November 2023. Devakumar Edwin made the statement during an interview with S&P Global Commodity Insights yesterday.
According to him, the Dangote refinery will receive its first cargo of crude in the next two weeks and will begin producing up to 370,000 barrels per day of diesel and jet fuel from October 2023. He also noted that by November 30, the refinery will start the phased ramp-up to 650,000 barrels per day of petrol.
“Right now, I’m ready to receive crude. We are just waiting for the first vessel. And so as soon as it comes in, we can start”, Mr. Edwin stated.
On the timeline change for commencement of operation, Mr. Edwin revealed that it was due to crude oil supply issues and that the NNPCL had committed their crude oil on a forward basis to other buyers before now, so they didn’t have the crude oil to supply to the refinery immediately.
He however pointed out that this supply delay is a temporary issue, and that the refinery would run on exclusively Nigerian supplied crude by November 2023.
He noted further that the Nigerian oil will be purchased in US dollars, and not naira because it is in a free zone on the outskirts of Lagos. He however stated that NNPCL will supply some crude at knockdown prices due to its equity stake in the refinery.
Mr. Devakumar Edwin also said that the Dangote refinery can process most African crudes, apart from heavy Angolan grades as well as Middle Eastern Arab Light and even US light tight oil. He also assured that Dangote Refinery will meet 100% of Nigeria’s domestic fuel demand.
“Basically, if you look at our production profile, 50% of my production will meet 100% of the requirements of the country. Excess gasoline, which will be 10 ppm sulfur Euro 5 quality, will be exported to other African markets as well as the US and South America, although the volumes will be relatively small. Meanwhile, jet fuel will be exported to Europe and diesel will be sold in sub-Saharan Africa”, he affirmed.
Devakumar Edwin equally said that the Dangote refinery would be enormously beneficial to Nigeria by establishing a reliable supply of “environmentally friendly” refined products and bringing a huge amount of foreign exchange into the country. Majority of the profit from the refinery business, according to the Executive Director of Dangote Group, would be ploughed back into further investments mostly in Nigeria because “Aliko Dangote’s focus is always on Nigeria.”