Dangote refinery is poised to commence test runs this week, having received its sixth 1 million barrel of crude cargo on Monday, according to a company official who spoke to Reuters.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Dangote mentioned that the facility received another 1 million barrels of oil from the Agbami field in the Niger Delta. This brings the total amount of crude delivered to the plant to 6 million barrels since the first cargo arrived in December.
According to a senior company executive, the next step involves starting the crude distillation unit, a crucial component of the refinery. It is highly likely that this process will commence during the upcoming week.
- He said, “Subsequently, we will be continuously buying crude and start commissioning the other departments,”
- “Saleable products will start coming from the first week itself. But, of course, the volume will be limited and the variety of saleable products will also be limited and it will start building up, as each major department gets commissioned”
What you should know
- The 650,000-barrel Dangote refinery is poised to end the importation of petroleum products in Nigeria and meet the energy needs of other countries across the West African sub-region.
- Boggled by a series of delays and missed deadlines even after commissioning in May, the Dangote refinery received its first crude shipment in December and since then has received around 5 million barrels of oil as part of preparation towards a test run.
- It was reported earlier that the Nigerian Upstream Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has mandated oil-producing companies to send 350,000 barrels of oil to the Dangote refiner daily in the first half of 2024. This is in line with the provisions of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) signed in 2021.
