The President of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has revealed that the Dangote Petroleum Refinery currently has over 500 million litres of petrol in its reservoir.
He also said the refinery now produces enough fuel for local consumption and export. Dangote spoke during a tour of the $20bn Lekki-based facility with the Zambia Minister for Energy, Makozo Chikote on Saturday.
The Zambian official visited the Dangote refinery in Lekki, Lagos State, seeking collaboration with the founder to help solve the country’s energy security issue.
In his address during the tour, Dangote said the refinery currently has N600bn worth of stocks in its tank farm. He said the plant will reach its 650,000 barrels per day full production capacity next month, adding that Nigeria cannot consume up to 50 per cent of its refined products.
“We can satisfy more than the local needs of Nigeria. As we speak, we have more than half a billion litres (of petrol). We have more than N600bn worth of stocks here today in the refinery. We have more than enough. The refinery is producing enough refined products, like gasoline, diesel, and kerosene, to meet 100 per cent of Nigeria’s requirements,” he stated.
Dangote disclosed that arrangements were being made to get enough crude to aid the refinery’s ramp-up plans.
“Now we are ramping up production. We must be at our full capacity by next month. But we have to do quite a lot of arrangements in terms of crude supply,” he stated.
Speaking about fuel quality, Africa’s richest man disclosed that refineries across the world are shutting down because of the Dangote refinery. He said no refinery in Africa and across Europe can produce the kind of quality fuel his refinery produces.
He said the sulphur content of his fuel could be as low as zero parts per million while the octane number can be 95.
“In terms of quality, there is actually no refinery in Africa, even in Europe that can produce our type of quality. We want to be flexible, you know the laws keep changing.”
Today, they will say 150 parts per million; tomorrow it’s 50 ppm, but we can produce up to zero ppm. This means we can do winter diesel, we can do Euro-5. No refinery around here can do that. When you read the news, you see that a lot of refineries now, especially in Europe, shutting down because of our own refinery. Our refinery is a percentage of the world’s production.
“Obviously, if we pump a lot, some of them will not be able to sell, that’s why in some countries, they will offer them money to just keep dumping. But then, we have to weather that storm up to the time that we will be able to be on our feet,” he added.
Dangote maintained that the local fuel consumption in Nigeria is 40 per cent of the refinery’s total production, stating that the remaining 60 per cent is for export to other countries, especially Africa.
He revealed that arrangements were being made with Afreximbank to resolve the challenges of letters of credit and financing.
“The maximum local consumption is around 40 per cent, but 60 per cent will be exported. We are making a lot of arrangements with some banks to make sure most of the products are sold within Africa; so that it can be a real African refinery, not done just for us to come and process raw materials and ship the products outside Africa. The problem has always been letters of credit; we are working with Afreximbank to resolve that financing issue,“ he said.
On the types of fuel being produced and the one the refinery has a competitive advantage on, he posited, “We have competitive advantages over PMS, diesel, aviation fuel, and others. The consumption of aviation fuel in Africa is very low because we don’t have too many aircraft flying around. PMS is what people use a lot. Here in Nigeria, most discussions are on PMS. You know we just deregulated, and everybody is trying to find his feet. Now that the subsidy is gone, things are ramping up.”
The Vice President of the Dangote Group, Davakumar Edwin, stated that the refinery has a strategic location advantage because it is close to the sea. He also reiterated that the refinery can meet all local requirements.
Analysing the refinery’s production data during a presentation, he stressed that the facility can produce 104 million litres of different petroleum products per day.
“57 million litres of petrol every day, 20 million litres of jet fuel, 37 million litres of diesel is our daily production. The local consumption is just 46 million litres. The rest, 58 million litres, will be exported on a daily basis,” Edwin explained.
In the presentation, it was disclosed that the refinery supplies 33 million litres of PMS for daily local consumption; diesel is 10 million litres per day and aviation fuel is 3 million litres. Data from the tank farm shows that the refinery has reservoirs to store fuel for days.
It has 12 tanks to store up to 600 million litres of petrol which can serve the country for 18 days. It has 17 tanks for 408 million litres of aviation fuel for 136 days, and 14 tanks to store 340 million litres of diesel for 34 days. Similarly, 20 tanks are in place for 2.4 billion litres of crude oil for 20 days.
In all, there are 177 tanks of 4.742 billion litres capacity. At the control room, it was learnt that the refinery is currently at 550,000 barrels per day, which is about 85 per cent of its full capacity.
Last week, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory said local refineries could not produce up to 50 per cent of Nigeria’s daily PMS consumption of about 50 million litres per day, stressing that this necessitated the importation of more PMS to cover the shortfall.
Madukwe B. Nwabuisi is an accomplished journalist renown for his fearless reporting style and extensive expertise in the field. He is an investigative journalist, who has established himself as a kamikaze reporter.