The Dangote Refinery which costs about $20bn in development cost has finally started production.
The largest single-train refinery in the world located in Nigeria’s commercial hub began production in the early hours of Friday January 13 2024.
This followed the delivery of around 6 million barrels of crude supply to the refinery this week.
Although it was supposed to begin operations since June 2023, the oil refinery built by Aliko Dangote received its first crude deliveries – late last year – in the latest step to starting up the delayed mega refinery.
Noted as Africa’s largest of its type, the 650,000 barrel-per-day Dangote refinery could be a game changer for Nigeria’s economy when it becomes fully operational by helping end the country’s reliance on fuel imports.
The initial run will be for the production of diesel and aviation fuel before moving on to petrol output.
Though one of Africa’s largest oil producers and the continent’s top economy, Nigeria relies almost totally on imported fuel and diesel because of a lack of refining capacity.
Fuel imports and subsidies caused a huge drain on foreign exchange when Nigeria was struggling with dwindling oil revenues and foreign currency shortages.
“Dangote Petroleum Refinery can meet 100 per cent of Nigeria’s requirement of all refined products, gasoline, diesel, kerosene, and aviation jet, and also have surplus of each of these products for export,” the company said in a statement.
As the Dangote refinery begins production, the Port Harcourt refinery is also expected to start production.