Nigeria’s state-owned energy firm starts shipping gasoline from Dangote Refinery

Nigeria’s state-owned energy firm began shipping gasoline from the Dangote Refinery, a step that could end decades of dependence on imports of the fuel for Africa’s largest crude producer.

Trucks started loading gasoline at the refinery, located in the outskirts of Lagos, the nation’s commercial hub, according to Femi Soneye, a spokesman for NNPC. Dangote Group posted videos Sunday on X, formerly known as Twitter, of trucks being loaded. This follows an agreement allowing NNPC to swap crude for an equivalent amount of gasoline from billionaire Aliko Dangote’s site.

The lack of refining capacity in Africa’s top crude producer means that it had to import most of its refined fuel requirement, leaving it short of dollars needed by other manufacturers to expand.

The agreement with Dangote Refinery replaces a similar swap arrangement that NNPC — Nigeria’s sole importer of gasoline — had with major oil traders. NNPC said earlier this month that its debts to the oil traders had put a strain on its ability to supply gasoline in the domestic market.

NNPC will start supplying Dangote Refinery 385,000 barrels a day of crude from Oct. 1, Zacch Adedeji, chairman of the technical sub-committee that negotiated the deal, said on Friday. The sale of crude and the purchase of gasoline will be done in local currency, Adedeji, who is also the chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, said.

The 650,000-barrels-per-day Dangote Refinery, which started processing of gasoline this month, will be able to turn more than half of its capacity into gasoline, enough to satisfy Nigeria’s demand for the product, according to the company that runs the plant.