Africa’s largest refinery, the $20 billion Dangote Petroleum Refinery, is sourcing crude oil from international suppliers to supplement its domestic deliveries as it continues to scale up operations.
Bloomberg reported that the $20 billion refinery has received over three million barrels of crude from the United States since the beginning of the month.
In addition, it has imported Angola’s Pazflor grade and Algeria’s Saharan Blend through a deal with Glencore Plc, reflecting its growing reliance on international suppliers.
While the 650,000 bpd refinery outranks Europe’s 10 largest refining facilities, it has struggled to secure sufficient local crude.
Dangote Refinery’s founder, Aliko Dangote, previously announced that the company would source crude from other African oil-producing nations to keep up with operational demands.
Earlier this week, there were reports that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) had halted its naira-for-crude deal with Dangote and other local refineries, a move that could increase production costs, exert more pressure on the naira, and lead to a rise in petrol pump prices.
Dangote refinery had already voiced concerns over NNPC’s failure to meet agreed crude supply commitments.
“We need 650,000 barrels per day, (state oil firm NNPC Ltd) agreed to give a minimum of 385,000 bpd but they are not even delivering that,” Edwin Devakumar, the vice-president of Dangote Industries Limited (DIL) had said last November.
