By Adedapo Adesanya
Dangote Refinery is set to receive its first shipment of Brazilian crude oil as it continues towards full operational capacity.
The 650,000 barrels per day capacity refinery cannot rely on Nigeria crude alone and has taken in millions of US crude in the last months and will add some others in the coming months.
The refinery will also now import a one-million-barrel cargo of Brazil’s Tupi crude, scheduled for delivery in the latter half of next month.
The Brazilian crude, sold by Petrobras, is among the most cost-effective and suitable oil grades available on the global market.
Despite having Africa’s largest oil output, Nigeria has long relied on foreign petroleum imports to fulfil local demand, with its refining sector failing to keep up.
Dangote Refinery holds that importing crude and refining it domestically would improve its energy security, decrease import reliance, and slash petrol costs for Nigerians.
This is coming after the refinery purchased 5 million barrels of WTI Midland for delivery in August and September.
In addition, the oil company also initiated a tender process to purchase an additional 6 million barrels of American crude for September.
This development means Dangote has now purchased over 16 million barrels of West Texas Intermediate crude oil this year.
Recall that the $19 billion refinery is set to begin supplying Petrol this July, according to the chairman and CEO of the company, Mr Aliko Dangote.
The CEO said the refinery would commence production of petrol between July 10 and 15, while supply to local marketers would commence from the third week of the same month.
“We had a bit of delay, but PMS will start coming out by 10 to 15 of July. But then we want to keep it in the tank to make sure that it settles. So by the third week of July, we’ll be coming out to take it into the market,” Mr Dangote said in May.
This was backed up recently by Mr Devakumar Edwin, the Vice President of Oil and Gas at Dangote Industries Limited (DIL), who noted that the timeline was still possible and that it would roll out petrol this month.