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Excitement in the air as Dangote Refinery gets third crude shipment of 1 million barrels

The Dangote Refinery in the Lagos Free Zone (LFZ) has received its third one-million-barrel crude oil cargo from Shell International Trading and Shipping Company Limited (STASCO).
The fourth crude shipment of 1 million barrels, it was gathered, is already on the way.
The refinery, which plans to commence operations at 350,000 bpd, is scheduled to start production of diesel and aviation fuel by Mid-January 2024 in which Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) production is to follow.
The refinery has the capacity to meet 100% of the Nigeria’s requirement of all refined products, gasoline, diesel, kerosene, and aviation jet, and also have surplus of each of these products for export.
Earlier this month, the $20bilion plant received its first Agbami Sweet crude cargo of 1 million barrels at its offshore crude receiving terminal in Lekki at about 7pm on December 7, marking the initiation of crude supplies for the refinery’s operations.
The tanker, chartered by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), symbolised the initial crude supply to Dangote’s state-of-the-art refinery as it geared up to initiate production.
The NNPC, which owns 20% stake in the refinery, had entered an agreement to supply 6 million barrels of crude oil as feedstock to the Dangote Refinery in December, aiming to jump-start operations.
The President of Dangote Group and owner of the refinery, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, had disclosed that the plant will fully come online with the refining of 650, 000 barrels per day by the end of 2024.
Dangote, in an interview in November, also said that the refinery would start with refining Nigerian crude, insisting that the refinery’s first priority is to supply petrol to Nigeria before exporting elsewhere, including the West African region.
“We don’t want to start our refinery with foreign goods, we want to start with the Nigerian crude.
“We’re more than ready and you will see our gasoline products soon”.