Dangote Refinery to import US Crude

The 650,000 barrels per day Dangote Refinery is set to import crude from the United States (US) in the coming months, a report has said.

Trafigura Group sold 2 million barrels of WTI Midland to the Dangote refinery for end-February delivery, Bloomberg reported Monday, quoting traders with knowledge of the matter.

This is the first time that the giant refinery has purchased non-Nigerian crude, traders said.

Dangote Petroleum Refinery had earlier in the month commenced production of diesel and aviation fuel.

Announcing the commencement in a statement, the company said the refinery has so far received six million barrels of crude oil at its two SPMs located 25 kilometres from the shore.

The first crude delivery was done on December 12, 2023, and the 6th cargo was delivered on January 8.

The first cargo that arrived at the plant was from Agbami crude grade from Shell International Trading and Shipping Company Limited (STASCO), one of the largest trading companies in Nigeria and globally, trading over 8 million barrels of crude oil daily.

The company made a further move towards the commencement of the production of refined petroleum products with the receipt of an additional one million barrels of crude bonny light supplied by the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC Ltd).

The fresh one million barrels of crude from the Shell terminal via the MT Otis owned by Trafigural is the second consignment to be delivered to the Dangote facility out of the six million barrels of crude being expected by the world’s largest single-train refinery.

The refinery can load 2,900 trucks a day at its truck-loading gantries. The products from the Refinery will conform to Euro V specifications.