The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited has revealed that it is going to supply Dangote Refinery with over 17.6 million barrels of crude oil between September and October.
The Executive Vice-President, (Downstream) of NNPC, Adedapo Segun made this known in an interview on Arise TV on Thursday. Adedapo Segun who said the move is part of the federal government’s push to drive local production of petroleum products, added that so far, the NNPC Ltd has so far supplied 30 million barrels of crude oil to Dangote Refinery.
“This month alone, we will be providing 6.3 million barrels of crude oil to Dangote refinery in seven cargos. And in October, we’ll be providing another 11.3 million barrels of crude oil to Dangote refineries in 13 cargoes. So we’re doing everything we can to make sure that this situation abates as soon as possible”, Segun said.
Going by NNPC’s projected supply of 17.6 million barrels to Dangote Refinery in two months, this translates to an average daily supply of 288,524 barrels. This is close to 300,000 bpd mark that NNPC Ltd previously agreed to supply the refinery.
The Dangote refinery is expected to also buy additional crude oil cargoes from other sources both locally and through Importation as it gradually increase it daily production capacity. In July, Dangote Refinery said it is targeting 550,000 bpd output by the end of this year, which is 85% of its full refining capacity of 650,000 barrels per day. It plans to hit its full refining capacity by next year.
Two days ago (Tuesday) Dangote refinery commenced petrol production after several delays. According to the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), the Dangote refinery is expected to supply 25 million litres of petrol daily in September which will subsequently increase to 30 million litres daily from October.
In the interim, Dangote Refinery also announced that NNPC Retail Ltd will be its sole offtaker. The pricing is still being fashioned out as disclosed by Alhaji Aliko Dangote on Tuesday. With the anticipated supply of at 25 million litres of PMS daily into the Nigerian market, the fuel scarcity across parts of country would ease considerably.
The only uncertainty for now is the pricing. Many NNPC retail outlets have already adjusted their pump price for PMS upwards to around N855 per litre while some independent marketers are selling the product for between N900 to N1200 per litre depending on the location.