First Crude Oil Shipment From Agbami Arrives Dangote Refinery

Dangote Refinery is set to commence fuel production as the first crude shipment from Agbami arrives at the facility.

Gatekeepers News reports that S&P Global, in a report on its website, said its industry sources disclosed that the OTIS tanker, carrying a 950,000 barrel cargo of Nigeria’s Agbami crude, set sail on December 6 and is currently en route to Lekki.

The tanker is expected to arrive today, December 7 around 8pm.

The Suezmax tanker, chartered by the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), symbolises the initial crude supply to Dangote’s state-of-the-art refinery as it gears up to initiate production, a West African oil trader told S&P Global.

Despite the refinery’s official completion in May, the lack of domestic crude feedstock had impeded oil product manufacturing. The NNPC, owning a 20% stake in the refinery, recently entered an agreement to supply 6 million barrels of crude oil as feedstock to the Dangote refinery in December, aiming to jumpstart operations.

Further shipments from various Nigerian offshore fields to the refinery have been chartered by NNPC, signifying the beginning of a series of scheduled crude supplies throughout this month, according to the oil trader.

The refinery, which is designed to process multiple crudes concurrently, aims to process three Nigerian crude grades — Escravos, Bonny Light, and Forcados.

Upon reaching full operational capacity, the facility is anticipated to produce a daily output of 327,000 b/d of gasoline, 244,000 b/d of gasoil/diesel, 56,000 b/d of jet fuel/kerosene, and 290,000 mt/year of propane/LPG.