The owner of the $20 billion Dangote Refinery, Mr Aliko Dangote, said on Monday that the facility has increased exports of premium motor spirit (PMS), otherwise known as petrol, and urea to African countries hit by supply disruptions caused by the Iran war.
Speaking during a tour of the refinery on the edge of commercial capital Lagos, Mr Dangote said the refinery, which is operating at its maximum capacity of 650,000 barrels a day, had helped cushion the full impact of the crisis both in Nigeria and across the continent.
“What I can do is assure Nigerians … and most of West Africa, Central Africa, and East Africa, we have the capacity to supply them,” he said, as per Reuters.
The businessman further said the facility had shipped some 17 cargoes of gasoline to other African nations, and exports of urea fertiliser had also recently risen, as buyers sought alternative sources of supply.
“In the last couple of days, we’ve been looking to mostly African countries, which we were not doing before,” he said, referring to the fertiliser shipments, without giving figures.
The refinery has the capacity to produce up to 3 million metric tons of urea annually, most of which is typically exported to the United States and South America, officials say.
Mr Dangote said the refinery hoped to get more crude cargoes to help curb rising fuel costs under the Crude-for-Naira initiative of the Nigerian government.
Last week, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited allocated seven May cargoes for the refinery, up from five in previous months.
The majority of Nigeria’s crude production is tied to Joint Venture (JV) contracts, which constrain the optimal supply of crude oil to the Dangote Refinery. This increase in crude allocations to the 650,000 barrel per day refinery could curb volumes of Nigerian crude available for export at a time when the Iran war has drastically cut supply from the Middle East.
The company is still purchasing crude at international benchmark prices from Brazil, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Algeria, and the US, among others.