Dangote Group Executive Director, Devakumar Edwin, has confirmed that the Dangote Refinery is set to start diesel and jet fuel refining by October 2023 and petrol refining by November 2023.
Edwin made this known in an interview with S&P Global Commodity Insight that the refinery will receive its first cargo of crude in the next two weeks and will begin producing up to 370,000 b/d of diesel and jet fuel from October.
He said: “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.”
The Dangote refinery valued at $19.5 billion, at full capacity of 650,000 b/d, would make Nigeria self-sufficient in fuels and leave plenty more for export.
He also noted that by the end of November 2023, the refinery will start the phased ramp-up to 650,000 b/d, around half of it gasoline, the key area of Nigerian petrol demand.
Edwin explained that the temporary setback was due to “non-supply of crude by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd.
“One of the shareholders in the project, NNPCL has actually committed our crude on forward basis to someone else, so they don’t have the crude.
“However, NNPC will supply some crude at knockdown prices due to its equity stake,” he said.
He added:”This is a temporary issue, and the refinery should run on exclusively Nigerian crude by November.”
Edwin said Dangote refinery is not dependent on the Nigeria market, pointing out that the refinery can process most African crude aside heavy Angolan grades, the Middle Eastern Arab Light and US light tight oil.
“We can take even some of the Russian grades… if the global system opens up to allow us to receive [them]. Basically if you look at our production profile, 50% of my production will meet 100% of the requirement 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,” Dangote Director also said.
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