By Lekan Adejuwon
The 650,000-barrel-per-day Dangote Refinery is expected to commence operations with up to six cargoes of crude oil to be supplied by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) next month.
The supply will facilitate the refinery’s test runs, three industry sources with knowledge of the matter revealed.
The refinery, funded by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, will transform oil trading in the Atlantic Basin and remove a lucrative outlet for fuels produced in Europe and the United States that have for years powered the cars, trucks and generators on the continent.
The refinery is located in the Lekki Free Trade zone in Lagos State. Once it is fully up and running, it will turn oil powerhouse Nigeria into a net exporter of fuels, a long-sought goal for the country that is currently almost totally reliant on imports.
One of the sources, an NNPCL official, who declined to be named, specified that six cargoes or 200,000 barrels of oil a day, would be supplied in December as part of a one-year deal, adding that volumes in future months would be supplied “based on mutual agreement and availability”.
The other sources said about four to five cargoes or at least 130,000 bpd, were planned.
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