Finally, Dangote Refinery starts operation on receipt of 6 cargoes of crude oil from NNPLCL

The 650,000 barrel-per-day Dangote oil refinery is expected to commence main operations with up to six cargoes of crude oil to be supplied by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL in December.

The supply will facilitate the refinery’s test runs, three industry sources with knowledge of the matter said.

The refinery, funded by 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 in the Lekki free trade zone near Lagos. Once it is fully up and running, it will turn oil powerhouse Nigeria into a net exporter of fuels, a long-sought goal for Nigeria that is currently almost totally reliant on imports.

One of the sources, an NNPCL official, who declined to be named, specified six cargoes, or 200,000 barrels of oil a day, bpd, 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”, reports Reuters.

The other sources said about 4-5 cargoes, or at least 130,000 bpd, were planned. A Dangote Group official, who did not wish to be named, said “some of the agreements have confidentiality clauses” without elaborating when asked about the NNPC supply deal.

NNPC has a 20 per cent stake in the refinery.

The refinery began the commissioning process in May this year after running years behind schedule at a cost of $19 billion, above initial estimates of $12-14 billion.

Commissioning includes testing the different units that make products from gasoline to diesel and making sure they respond to the control panel