Nigeria’s giant new Dangote oil refinery will start processing crude in the third quarter of this year and many analysts say it has the potential of being a game-changer for Africa’s largest economy.
It will revolutionise the supply of refined products in Nigeria and around the sub-region while also being a catalyst for foreign exchange management given that the Central Bank has said it could ease the process of floating the local currency.
According to Bloomberg, mechanical work on the refinery is complete and “hopefully before the end of the third quarter we should be in the market,” Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, said in a briefing at the plant site in Lagos.
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The plant will start with a processing capacity of 540,000 barrels a day, Dangote said. “Full production can start maybe, by the end of the year or beginning of 2023,” he said.
The facility, which will cost an estimated $19 billion to build, has an installed capacity of 650,000 barrels per day. Its output will be more than enough to meet Nigeria’s fuel demands and turn Africa’s largest crude producer into an exporter of refined crude.
