The Dangote Petroleum Refinery aims to halt crude oil imports by December 2025 — a shift that would eliminate the need for hundreds of thousands of barrels of imported oil daily.
According to a Bloomberg report citing Devakumar Edwin, Vice President at Dangote Industries who oversees operations at the 650,000 barrel-per-day facility in Lagos, existing contracts with international crude suppliers will expire, allowing the refinery to switch to locally sourced crude.
Edwin explained that the company had previously sourced crude from countries including Brazil, Angola, Ghana, and Equatorial Guinea. However, he noted that “improved relations between the refinery, local oil traders and the government will result in a steady supply of Nigerian crude.”
In June, about half of the refinery’s crude came from domestic producers, who are expected to increase supply as their existing foreign contracts conclude, the report stated.
Once the transition is complete, the refinery will rely entirely on Nigerian crude to meet its needs.
“We expect some of the long-term contracts will expire. Personally, and as a company, we expect that before the end of the year, we can transition 100 per cent to local crude,” Edwin was quoted.
Bloomberg data shows that in June, the refinery sourced 53% of its crude from domestic suppliers and 47% from the United States.
Currently, the plant is processing 550,000 barrels of crude per day, Edwin said.
According to a cargo allocation list reviewed by Bloomberg News, Dangote Refinery was set to receive five shipments from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) in July — the same number it expects in August. Each cargo is said to carry nearly one million barrels of crude.
The $20 billion refinery, built by Aliko Dangote, was designed to stop the longstanding practice of exporting Nigeria’s crude to Europe for refining and then reimporting it as expensive fuel products.
Although the facility hasn’t yet reached its full 650,000 bpd capacity, its gradual scale-up has already turned Nigeria into a net exporter of refined petroleum products. In earlier stages, the refinery had to rely heavily on foreign crude supplies due to shortfalls from domestic traders.
Chairman Aliko Dangote recently acknowledged that the refinery “relied heavily on the United States for crude supply despite the naira-for-crude deal.”
However, the refinery expects domestic crude deliveries to increase significantly in the coming months.