Dangote Refinery buys first UAE crude as domestic supply tightens

The Dangote Petroleum Refinery has purchased two cargoes of crude oil from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), marking its first-ever procurement of UAE crude as it diversifies its feedstock sources amid continued constraints in Nigeria’s domestic crude supply.

According to a company source involved in the refinery’s operations, cited by S&P Global Commodity Insights, the incoming cargoes are the first that the 650,000-barrels-per-day refinery has sourced from a Middle Eastern supplier.

The purchases signal a shift from the Nigerian, African and United States crude grades that have traditionally supplied the refinery.

The transactions followed the return of Middle Eastern crude exports to the global market after the US and Iran reached an interim peace agreement guaranteeing safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.

The development encouraged the return of oil tankers to the Gulf and increased the availability of crude from the region.

Although the refinery was built to process Nigeria’s light sweet crude, it has continued to broaden its feedstock base as operations expand.

Earlier this year, founder Aliko Dangote and David Bird, Chief Executive Officer, told Platts, part of S&P Global Energy, that the refinery intends to incorporate heavier crude grades into its processing mix as it develops greater blending capability.

“We definitely want to heavy up the barrel,” Bird said in April.

He added, “We will be in the crude blending game. So you can easily imagine that at 1.4 million b/d we could process 30 percent Middle Eastern grades on each train.”

According to S&P Global Commodities at Sea data, about 70 percent of the refinery’s crude imports in 2025 originated from Nigeria, while 24 percent came from the US.

In 2026, the refinery also imported crude grades from Angola, Ghana, Libya and Guyana as it continued expanding the range of feedstock it can process.

The refinery currently receives between 13 and 15 cargoes of Nigerian crude monthly under a naira-denominated supply agreement with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), reducing its exposure to foreign exchange risk.

However, Bird previously said the arrangement had been affected by inadequate crude availability and operational challenges at export terminals, prompting the refinery to source additional supplies from international markets.

Dangote plans to double the refinery’s processing capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day by the end of 2028. At that level, the facility would be capable of refining about 80 percent of Nigeria’s recent daily crude oil production, increasing the importance of securing a broader and more reliable crude supply base.