Once Nigeria’s Dangote Oil Refinery operates at full capacity, Ghana might purchase petroleum products from the facility, eliminating the need for more costly European imports.
According to a Reuters story, Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, the nation’s chief oil regulator, made this statement on Monday.
At the OTL Africa Downstream Oil Conference in Lagos, Abdul-Hamid, the head of the National Petroleum Authority, said that this change might remove Ghana’s $400 million monthly fuel import expenditure from Europe.
He clarified that importing from Nigeria would decrease prices for goods and services by reducing freight costs.
“If the refinery reaches 650,000 bpd a day capacity, all that volume cannot be consumed by Nigeria alone, so instead of us importing as we do right now from Rotterdam, it will be much easier for us to import from Nigeria and I believe that will bring down our prices,” Hamid stated.
He added that the need for dollars may decline if African nations were to embrace a single currency finally.
Background
As previously reported by THE NEWS CHRONICLES, once the Dangote Oil Refinery starts to run at full capacity, it will sell petroleum products to neighbouring West African nations and the Caribbean.
The refinery’s CEO, Aliko Dangote, said in May that once the plant is fully operational, it will manufacture refined products like petrol, diesel and aviation fuel for the Nigerian market and export to other African countries.
During his remarks at the Africa CEO Forum in Kigali, Rwanda, Dangote emphasised that the 650,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery can handle local demand while also supplying refined products to other African nations.
According to Africa’s richest man, the refinery will guarantee a sufficient supply of aviation fuel, diesel, and petrol for the African continent and export markets, including Brazil.
“We started producing jet fuel, we are producing diesel, by next month, we’ll be producing gasoline. What that will do, it will be able to take most African crudes.
“Our capacity is too big for Nigeria. It will be able to supply West Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa,” Dangote informed the panel.
What To Note
The wealthiest person in Africa, Aliko Dangote, invested $20 billion to finish the Dangote refinery.
When the refinery reaches full operational state, which should happen this year or next, it will be the largest in Africa and Europe, with a processing capacity of 650,000 barrels per day.
The Dangote refinery is anticipated to lessen Nigeria’s reliance on imported petroleum products drastically.
Ironically, Nigeria imports nearly all of its fuel, even though it is Africa’s most populous and largest oil producer.
This is mostly due to the country’s inadequate refining infrastructure, which the new refinery aims to address.
