Nigeria will have no need to import petrol from next month - Dangote

Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man and Chairman of the Dangote Group, has assured that with the implementation of the Dangote Refinery's plans, Nigeria will no longer need to import gasoline starting next month.

Dangote made this announcement at the Africa CEO Forum Annual Summit in Kigali on Friday, expressing optimism about the transformation of Africa’s energy landscape.

Dangote also stated that his refinery can supply West Africa's petrol and diesel needs, as well as meet the continent's aviation fuel demand, Arise reported.

What Dangote said:

“Right now, Nigeria has no cause to import anything apart from gasoline and by sometime in June, within the next four or five weeks, Nigeria shouldn’t import anything like gasoline; not one drop of litre.”

“We have enough gasoline to give to at least the entire West Africa, diesel to give to West Africa and Central Africa. We have enough aviation fuel to give to the entire continent and also export some to Brazil and Mexico," he said.

He also added that the content will soon stop the importation of fertilizer.

“As I said, give us three or a maximum of four years and Africa will not, I repeat, not import any more fertilizer from anywhere. We will make Africa self-sufficient in both potash, phosphate, and urea, we are at three million tonnes and in the next twenty months, we will be at six million tonnes of urea which is the entire capacity of Egypt. We are getting there.”

Dangote refinery was recently ranked above Europe's 10 largest refining facilities. The $20.5 billion facility has a processing capacity of 650,000 barrels per day.

For decades, Nigeria has been plagued by oil theft and pipeline vandalism, which have hampered the country's ability to meet the daily processing supply quota of the Dangote Refinery, its first private indigenous refinery.

Now, therefinery is looking to purchase 24 million barrels of US crude over the coming year as it increases processing rates.