Nigeria’s Dangote Oil Refinery has begun processing gasoline after delays caused by recent crude shortages, an executive said on Monday.<\/p>\n
The $20 billion refinery on the outskirts of Lagos, built by Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote, began operations in January with output of products including naphtha and jet fuel.<\/p>\n
With a capacity of 650,000 barrels per day, Africa’s largest refinery promises to ease oil producer Nigeria’s costly reliance on imported oil products.<\/p>\n
“We are testing the product (gasoline) and subsequently it will start flowing into the product tanks,” said Devakumar Edwin, a vice president at Dangote Industries Limited.<\/p>\n
He did not say exactly when the gasoline would hit the local market.<\/p>\n
Edwin said state-oil firm NNPC Ltd, Nigeria’s sole importer of gasoline, would buy its gasoline exclusively.<\/p>\n
“If no one is buying it, we will export it as we have been exporting our aviation jet fuel and diesel,” Edwin said.<\/p>\n
The delivery of gasoline into the Nigerian market will ease NNPC’s\u00a0struggle\u00a0to supply the local market. The company is reeling with debts of $6 billion to oil traders for supply since January.<\/p>\n
This has affected its ability to supply the local market where fuel queues have\u00a0persisted\u00a0since July.<\/p>\n
Prices have jumped by 45% from the official price of 617 naira ($0.3942) announced after subsidies were removed last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe news that Dangote is processing gasoline couldn\u2019t come at a more crucial time given NNPC\u2019s statement about its difficulties securing imported supply due to financial strain,” said Clementine Wallop, director, sub-Saharan Africa at political risk consultancy Horizon Engage.<\/p>\n
She said this “prompts the question of how NNPC will manage purchasing from Dangote, and impresses the need for greater transparency in its finances”.<\/p>\n
Nigeria is Africa’s top oil producer yet it imports almost all its fuel due to years of neglect of its national refineries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nigeria’s Dangote Oil Refinery has begun processing gasoline after delays caused by recent crude shortages, an executive said on Monday. The $20 billion refinery on the outskirts of Lagos, built by Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote, began operations in January with output of products including naphtha and jet fuel. With a capacity of 650,000 barrels per […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10515,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":54,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,27],"tags":[260,261,175,2745],"class_list":["post-13159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-west-africa","tag-dangote","tag-dangote-oil-refinery","tag-nigeria","tag-nigerian-national-petroleum-corporation-nnpc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}