By Tayo Elegbede

Dangote Refinery has disclosed that plans are in motion to commence operations of 370,000 Barrels per day in October 2023. The Dangote Group Executive Director, Devakumar Edwin confirmed this.

Recall that while delivering his speech at the official commissioning of the refinery by former President Muhammadu Buhari in May, the President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, said, “Your excellencies, distinguished guests, our first product will be in the market before the end of July or beginning of August this year.”

However, since the deadline passed, nothing was heard about the start of the operation of the $19.5 billion refinery, Naija News reports.

According to S&P Global Commodity Insights, Edwin, during an interview, said the long-awaited refinery will start with diesel and jet fuel in October at 370,000 Barrels per day.

He revealed the challenges the refinery has been facing with the supply of crude and how it delayed the start of operation of the facility.

The Dangote Group Executive Director further explained that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corps, which is a shareholder in the project, cannot supply the refinery crude oil until November, therefore, the company has to trade houses.

He said, “Right now, we are ready to receive crude. We are just waiting for the first vessel. And so, as soon as it comes in, we can start.

“At the last minute [NNPC] said, ‘We have actually committed our crude on forward basis to someone else’, so immediately they don’t have the crude.”

Edwin, however, described it as a temporary setback as the facility has to run exclusively Nigerian crude, sweet crude, by November.

Edwin said the scale of the refinery meant being “solely dependent on Nigerian crude would not be advisable”, meaning the refinery can process most African crudes — apart from heavy Angolan grades — as well as Middle Eastern Arab Light and even US light tight oil.

“We can take even some of the Russian grades… if the global system opens up to allow us to receive [them],” he added.

The refinery’s maximum intended capacity of 650,000 b/d will make Nigeria self-sufficient in fuels while leaving ample for export.