After eight years of work, months of negotiations and several false starts, the continent’s largest refinery, owned by Nigerian tycoon Aliko Dangote, began delivering its first liters of gasoline on Sunday.
About 500 tankers were transported on Sunday by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) to the refinery located more than 70 kilometres east of Lagos, Nigeria’s economic capital, to carry 25 million litres of petrol, also called PMS (Premium Motor Spirit), an AFP journalist on the scene observed.
The gigantic infrastructure, with a planned capacity of 650,000 barrels per day, whose total cost has reached 20 billion dollars, more than double the expected, should be able to cover the entire fuel needs of Africa’s largest populous country as well as export part of its production.
Nigeria is the country’s largest oil producer, but imports nearly all of its fuel needs.
The country has four state-owned refineries (in Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna), but none are operational anymore.
Nigerian Finance Minister Wale Edun, who was present at the site, welcomed a “historic event” that marks “the resumption of Nigeria’s march towards industrialization”.
“Today we have taken an important step towards energy self-sufficiency in Nigeria,” he assured.
This refinery, whose commissioning has been postponed several times, has long been presented to the public as the solution to Nigeria’s chronic gasoline shortage, while keeping pump prices low.
But nothing is less certain because Nigerians have seen the price of a litre of petrol at the pump rise from less than 200 naira to 850 naira in a year and a half.
The price of petrol initially tripled after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came to power and ended fuel subsidies, which had kept prices artificially low for decades.
A surprise increase in pump prices of nearly 45% was also implemented in early September, which is all the more difficult for Nigerians to accept as the country is going through a severe economic crisis with inflation exceeding 33% in July.
Aliko Dangote, ranked in 2024 by Forbes magazine as “Africa’s richest man” for the thirteenth consecutive year, heads a conglomerate active in numerous sectors including cement, sugar and fertilizers.
Dangote petrol is expected to be available at the pump from October 1.