Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest person and the owner of the continent’s newest and biggest refinery, is discussing crude supply to the refinery and fuel supply to Nigeria with Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu at an emergency meeting on Tuesday.
Dangote and President Tinubu are meeting with representatives of the domestic oil industry regulators and oil industry officials as the new refinery of the Dangote Group has faced issues with crude supply since it started up operations earlier this year.
The Dangote refinery began the production of fuels in January 2024, marking the start-up of the plant that has seen years of delays.
The refinery, which has a processing capacity of 650,000 barrels per day (bpd), will meet 100% of Nigeria’s demand for all refined petroleum products and will also have a surplus of each of the products for export. It has yet to reach full capacity, expected at some point next year.
However, the crude supply to the refinery has been an issue for Dangote in recent months.
“We’re meeting to make sure everything is put together. There are a lot of issues about the exchange rate and pricing,” Dangote told the Financial Times.
There have been reports and speculation that Dangote has fallen out with the Nigerian president, who is reportedly not as supportive of Dangote’s business as his predecessor. Moreover, rumors have it that Africa’s wealthiest person has issues with the state oil firm NNPC.
Dangote told FT that there his relationship with the president hasn’t been strained and insisted they are on good terms.
Earlier this month, the Dangote refinery received four cargoes from NNPC under a sale agreement to deliver crude which the refinery will pay in naira, the local currency, Nigerian media reported.
Dangote wants to end Nigeria’s fuel imports with the mega refinery. So far, the biggest oil producer in Africa has been importing all of the fuel it consumes. But the businessman told FT that an “oil mafia” exporting crude and importing cheap – including Russian – crude is trying to undermine these plans.
