Cameroon’s newly proposed 30,000Barrels Per Stream Day (BPSD) refinery and petroleum storage complex in Kribi port already has a clear line of sight to financing.
$210Million or 22 % of the $950Million required for the plant’s construction will come for Banque Gabonaise et Française Internationale (BGFI). The remaining $740Million will be provided by Ariana Energy (49%), Tradex S.A. (31%), and the National Hydrocarbons Corporation (SNH) (20%).
SNH alone has opted to bear the $295Million cost of the storage terminal, proposed to have a capacity of 250Million to 300Million Litres for products including gasoil, gasoline, Jet A1, kerosene and heavy fuel oil (HFO), according to CSTAR, the newly formed storage subsidiary of SNH, which is leading the entire project.
BGFI, headquartered in Gabon, is a top lender in Central Africa as well as the continent’s Francophone countries: Benin, Cameroon, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Madagascar, DRC, Sao Tome and Principe, and Senegal, with a subsidiary in France.
Tradex is a trading subsidiary of SNH. Arian Energy is a UAE headquartered entity, which has interests in a variety of sectors.
The Kribi refinery project is running ahead against the backdrop of the on-going rehabilitation of the 42,000BPSD Limbe refinery, scheduled for a partial restart in December 2027. Limbe caught a devastating fire in May 2019 and has been idle since then.
CTAR says that the Kribi’s Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) studies are expected to be completed in June 2026 and equipment delivery is planned for September 2026.
The indicated start date of production, around December 25, 2026, is a bit of a stretch, even though CSTAR explains that “initial capacity will reach 10,000 barrels per day, before increasing to 30,000 barrels per day from 2027”.
Angola’s new refinery will start dispensing petroleum products before the second quarter of 2026, its owners have said.
The Cabinda Refinery, inaugurated with fanfare in September 2025, received the first crude oil transfer from Malongo in the same month and commenced the final testing phase.
The project has faced several delays, including financial constraints, since the conceptual plan was laid out in 2029.
Marcelo Hofke, CEO of Gemcorp, which holds a 90% majority stake and is the lead developer of the project, said the timeline of December 2025 for commercial operations could not be met because of strict compliance with safety protocols.
“Performance tests are currently underway, with completion expected by the end of this month (March 2026)”, Holfke said on the sideline of an investment product launch in Luanda March 16, 2026.
The two phase project, designed to produce diesel, jet fuel, naphtha, and HFO, is developed as a public-private partnership with a 90:10 equity split between Gemcorp and Sonangol, the state hydrocarbon company.
As the first phase of 30,000Barrels per Stream Day gets ready to supply the market, engineering works for the second phase are underway until October 2026, followed by the opening of the construction tender.
“The idea is that in the first half of 2027 there will be conditions to start the second phase, to reach 60,000 barrels,” Holfke explained, adding that an investment of $700Million is planned for the second phase of the Cabinda Refinery.
After a five month global search for well-heeled and technically honed companies who could invest in, as well as run the four state owned Nigerian refineries, the NNPC is in conversation with the China Refinery and Petrochemical Company, the “last wiling partner standing”.
The Nigerian state hydrocarbon company, which owns the four moribund plants with combined 450,000Barrels Per Stream Day (BPSD) input capacity (in Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna cities in the country), embarked on a new strategy to revamp them after the last Turn around Maintenance ran aground.
The on-going negotiation with China Refinery and Petrochemical Company (CRPC) is partly focused on choosing between collocating a refinery imported from China with the 120,000BPSD Warri Refinery (which the Chinese prefer) or entirely refurbishing the 210,000BPSD Port Harcourt Refinery at the cost of around $2.5Billion (which is the Nigerians’ choice). Either way, CRPC will fund and run the plant, with NNPC being a non-operating, non-funding partner. The shareholding structure will be determined after the technical terms have been fully agreed.
If a deal is signed with CRPC, it will be “the fruitful culmination of the world-wide recruitment of a word class facility engineering companies with financial heft who could invest in, as well as run the refineries, with the NNPC taking non operatorship role”, multiple sources at NNPC told Africa Oil+Gas Report.
“What we wish for at this point is having non operated minority stakes in functioning refineries, whether it is a 20% stake in Dangote or 30% stake in another; we want to have a skin in the country’s refining game, but we don’t have to be the sole owner or operators”, NNPC sources tell Africa Oil+Gas Report.
Africa Oil+Gas Report reported exclusively in October 2025, that the office of the NNPC’s Executive Vice President (EVP) Downstream had, between August and late September 2025, embarked on a worldwide search of such companies and had whittled down, to three, the number of such companies ready to do business.
The decision to get into such a partnership, emerged from the review of NNPC’s asset audit and portfolio benchmarking, conducted over the course of three months between May and July 2025.
NNPC’s current, ten month old executive management (led by GCEO, Bayo Ojulari) and board of directors (chaired by Ahmadu Kida- Musa) deliberated on the likely outcome of the sale of the state owned facilities, in the context of the emergence of the Dangote Refinery, which has a nameplate capacity of 650,000 Barrels Per Stream Day (BPSD) and has reported current gasoline output of 70Million litres a day.
Ojulari alluded to the findings of the portfolio review at the Nigeria International Energy Summit in Abuja on February 4, 2026, when he said: “We were spending a lot of money on operations, a lot of money on contractors. But when you look at the net, we were just leaking away value”. He stopped short of criticising the Turn Around Maintenance, carried out on the Warri and Port Harcourt Refineries between 2021 and 2025, but he contended: “The crude we were taking into Port Harcourt was producing mid-grade products. When you aggregate their value compared to what you put in, it was a waste.”
It’s not clear yet if a deal between NNPC and CRPC will be consummated. And if it is, there is no absolute certainty the partnership will not unravel, “but the Chinese have shown good faith, and this is a good opportunity for us to let go of operations and still be a part of ownership”, the sources explained.
What’s different between Ojuari’s strategy and the one applied under Mele Kyari, the highly consequential NNPC GCEO from 2019 to March 2025, is that under Kyari the NNPC would spend money on revamp of the refineries then contract out the Operation & Maintenance work after the refurbishments, but retain the sole ownership of the facilities.
NNPC insists on being in the refinery business because in its view(1), as a company mandated by law to ensure energy security, it must be part of internal competition with other local refiners and (2) the country cannot afford only one large refiner and product supplier.
To have had to sell the refineries, “it would look poorly, in the public sphere, if NNPC should announce the sale of its refineries, less than a year after spending over $2Billion on Turn Around Maintenance”.
Under Kyari, NNPC has spent considerable energy on refurbishing the plants in the last six years. The facilities came on stream between 1965 and 1989, but have been largely non performing in the last 18years. Between 2019 and mid-2023, Nigeria’s cabinet of ministers, known as the Federal Executive Council (FEC), approved a total of approximately $3Bllion for the phased rehabilitation of the four plants in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna refining complexes, with an additional 100Billion Naira (approximately $240Million) reportedly spent on refinery rehabilitation in 2021 alone. But there have been significant commissioning hitches despite the fact that the refurbishment of these plants were being led by such bespoke contractors as Marie Technimont of Italy (Port Harcourt plants) and Daewoo Construction of Korea (Warri and Kaduna)
Support staff at NNPC Ltd.’s 125,000Barrels Per Stream Day (BPSD) capacity Warri refinery in Nigeria’s Niger Delta basin have not been paid for two months, marking a recurring situation at the facility.
But the state hydrocarbon company said it is working with all stakeholders for a fair resolution, improving payment processes to clear arrears and planning to offer new contracts that better address contract staff conditions of service by the second quarter of 2026.
Warri refinery support staff said while technicians, equipment operators and safety professionals have not been paid for 60 days, other categories of support staff, including cleaners, are yet to be paid for all of 2025. Africa Oil+Gas Report reported in August 2025that Warri refinery support staff were owed 120 days of pay.
NNPC Refineries Coordinator Bayo Adenrele made two successive public appearances at the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry and at the Oil Trading and Logistics (OTL) conference, also in Lagos, on October 22 and October 28 2025, respectively. For refineries to be successful, “Policy certainty is key. Smart financing, looking at PPP models, and human capital investments, investing in human capital is equally critical”, Adenrele said at OTL.
But in a January 16 2026 letter addressed to Mr. Adenrele by the Warri refinery support staff and seen by Africa Oil+Gas Report, the workers said they were writing out of “deep concern, pain and prolonged frustration” at the “suspension of training and capacity-building programmes” and “non-payment of salaries since November 2025”, among other troubling issues.
NNPC’s Corporate Communications office told Africa Oil+Gas Report the company acknowledges payment timeline problems for support staff, “involving certain third-party contractors supporting refinery operations” at Warri. “Payments to the majority of contractors have been completed up to September 2025, while outstanding payments for subsequent periods are currently progressing through internal review and approval processes in line with agreed contract terms”, NNPC said.
NNPC “intentionally curtailed” operations at the Warri refinery in January 2025, “to carry out necessary intervention works on select equipment, including field instruments that were impacting sustainable and steady operations”, the company explained. The interventions were successfully completed by the next month but Warri has remained shut since the first month of 2025. The current management of NNPC has indicated that Warri’s December 2024 restart was “ill-informed and sub-commercial”. The former management, which restarted then shut Warri, had also cancelled allocations of crude oil feedstock to the refinery, exporting the allocations instead.
Warri saw the start of a $492Million quick-fix project to restore 60% of its nameplate capacity by the Nigerian subsidiary of South Korea’s Daewoo Engineering and Construction in June 2022, leading to the refinery’s restart in the closing month of 2024, before the interventions of January 2025 became necessary. NNPC’s three refineries operated below 19% of their combined 445,000BOPD capacity between 2009 and 2019 when Warri refinery’s process units were shut.
Nigerian public opinion was for several years arrayed against the salaries and other overhead costs of the low-performing NNPC refineries. Intense national criticism and the growing casualisation of the workforce at Warri refinery seem to have gone together, with support staff now amounting to almost 70% of the facility’s workers. Warri refinery support staff have not seen any upward review of their pay package since 2015, despite the various cost-of-living crises that have rocked Nigeria in the past decade. NNPC went further and did not renew the contracts of many of the support staff from 2019.
Warri support staff are the frontline keepers of the massive investments represented by the refinery. The support staff also remain responsible for internal revenue generation activities even when the refinery process units are not running, including the operation of facilities that Nigeria’s most successful, privately-owned modular refineries rely on for their petroleum product exports. Warri support staff are also critical to any successful restart of the refinery, as was demonstrated when many whose contracts were not renewed before the Covid-19 pandemic were called back to support the Daewoo quick-fix project in 2022. NNPC in its statement to AOGR said it “recognises the importance” of the Warri refinery support staff “to safe and efficient operations and appreciate their continued engagement and patience”.
“New contracts are being designed to comprehensively address conditions of service, including pensions, taxes, training, and medical benefits, with the objective of providing improved clarity, stability, and protections for affected workers. These contracts are expected to come into effect by June 30 2026”, NNPC told Africa Oil+Gas Report.
The new NNPC management initially said it was open to selling off its three refineries before later ruling out such sales in 2025, suggesting that despite their problematic history and uncertain future trajectory Nigeria’s state-owned refineries are valuable. And the example of the now privately-owned Eleme Petrochemicals facility is that ownership and management committed to commercial excellence may be all that is missing at such national plants.
NNPC said in October 2025 that a “technical and commercial review” of Warri refinery was ongoing “for comprehensive assessment [to] high-grade or repurpose as may be required to ensure optimal performance and sustainability”. NNPC aims to select “technical equity partners who have a track record of operating refineries to international standards”, the company said. Africa Oil+Gas Report reported exclusively in November 2025that NNPC had narrowed its considerations down to three potential technical equity partners.
The Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) Ltd resumed crude oil refining operations on December 19, 2025, “after several years of inactivity”, the company’s management has declared.
“This achievement follows the successful completion of major Turnaround Maintenance (TAM) works on the Crude Distillation Unit (CDU), executed within three months from August 1 to October 30, 2025”, the statement explained.
“Following the completion of the TAM, the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) conducted comprehensive regulatory inspections and confined TOR’s full compliance with all mandatory safety and operational requirements.
“Consequently, the NPA granted clearance for the resumption of refining activities”, TOR Ltd added.
With the required regulatory clearance, refining operations began with all the line of petroleum products going to storage for the first time in several years.
“As part of a phased transition toward full operational capacity, and in advance of the refinery’s official recommissioning, TOR will continue operating over the coming months to stabilize systems, optimize performance, and ensure sustained operational reliability. In addition, TOR has completed the installation of a new furnace, F-61 , which will soon be commissioned and integrated into the CDU.
This critical upgrade will enable the refinery to restore its original nameplate capacity of 45,000 barrels per stream day (BPSD), up from the current operating level of 28,000BPSD, with a clear strategic pathway to expand the capacity to 60,000 BPSD in the medium term, following the installation of a new Air-Cooler.
“The Government of Ghana will formally commission and tie-in the F-61 furnace at a later date. Details regarding the commissioning event, including timing and arrangements, will be duly communicated to stakeholders and the general public in due course”.
Aradel Holdings achieved a surge in output of petroleum products at its crude oil refinery in Ogbele in the eastern Niger Delta, Nigeria.
The integrated energy provider delivered 31.9Million litres in November 2025, corresponding to an average daily output of 1.05Million litres of diesel, HHK (Household Kerosene), Naptha and HFO (Heavy Fuel Oil), from its 11,000Barrels of Oil Per Stream Day (BSPD) refinery, located on the Ogbele field.
The November 2025 daily average was 21% higher than the equivalent figure for the company’s average output for the first nine months of 2025 (9M 2025), indicated in Aradel’s 3Q 2025 report.
Diesel output, at 315,487litres per day in the month, was 26% higher than the 250,000 litres per day averaged for 9M 2025.
To achieve this, Aradel committed 7,000BOPD from its crude output as feedstock for the refinery.
When Lucky Aiyedatiwa, Governor of Ondo state, the hydrocarbon rich subnational jurisdiction in Nigeria’s south west, announced the $50Billion Sunshine Infrastructure Joint Venture (JV) on November 5, 2025, his the state was projected as the country’s next industrial powerhouse. The plan — a 500,000-barrels-per-day refinery and a 1,471-hectare Free Trade Zone in Ilaje — was hailed as a turning point for job creation, investment, and energy independence.
The consortium, featuring Backbone Infrastructure Nigeria Limited (BINL), MJ Care Investment Finance, China Harbour, and Honeywell OUP, claimed to be backed by NEFEX Holdings Limited (Canada) through its Nigerian subsidiary, Nefex Petro Line Ltd.
But a deeper interrogation of the deal using a structured risk framework raises fundamental questions about its credibility. New corporate filings in the United Kingdom, linked to the same individuals behind NEFEX, now cast additional doubt on the substance of this multi-billion-dollar narrative.
Corporate and Legal Fragility
At the core of the deal is NEFEX Holdings, a company incorporated in February 2025 — barely nine months before the announcement. The firm has no operational history, no audited accounts, and no verifiable track record in infrastructure or energy development. Yet, by July 2025, it was already signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Ondo State, claiming to have “secured” tens of billions in funding.
Records from Companies House UK revealed the incorporation of Supreme International Monetary and Credit Organization Limited (Company No. 16716243), registered in London on September 15, 2025, with just £100 in share capital. Its directors — Dr. Navid Zaheri (Omani), Mr. Farhad Salehi (Canadian), Mr. Eghbal Kord Jamshidi, and Mr. Saeed Zaheri — are the same individuals identified in the NEFEX structure.
“The Ondo refinery deal reflects Nigeria’s ongoing development paradox: a nation eager for transformative capital yet chronically vulnerable to speculative partnerships. Subnational governments, often excluded from federal funding pipelines, have grown dependent on MoU diplomacy — signing ambitious deals that seldom mature into tangible assets.”
Dr. Zaheri, listed as both Chairperson and Person with Significant Control (PSC), holds 95% of shares and over 75% of voting rights. The company’s address — 20–22 Wenlock Road, London N1 7GU — is a well-known shared virtual office used by hundreds of newly formed entities.
With no operational base, employees, or financial statements, the pattern is unmistakable: a network of thinly capitalised, multi-jurisdictional companies designed to appear global, yet offering little substance.
Cross-Border and Transparency Gaps
The Sunshine JV spans four regulatory jurisdictions — Nigeria, Canada, Oman, and the United Kingdom — yet none provide a transparent financial trail. NEFEX lists a Canadian registration, operates via a Swiss phone line, and is directed primarily by Omani nationals. Its supposed UK affiliate, Supreme International Monetary and Credit Organization Ltd, claims expertise in credit, investment, and advisory services, but offers no evidence of operational activity.
Such opacity creates severe cross-border enforcement risks. Should disputes or defaults occur, the Nigerian government — or Ondo State taxpayers — would face a legal maze with little practical recourse. Despite promises of “transparency,” no escrow accounts, proof of funds, or letters of credit have been presented publicly.
People and Reputation Risks
The leadership of the consortium adds more symbolism than substance.
Ken Nnamani, former Senate President and JV Chairman, lends political stature but no technical experience in energy or project finance.
Henry Owonka, the JV’s Managing Director, projects confidence and claims “consistent engagement” with ONDIPA, but no record of previous infrastructure delivery exists.
Wale Adekola of BINL touts NEFEX’s “global financing network,” yet no major financial institution or regulator has publicly endorsed the arrangement.
Online discourse around the project — from Tribune Online, Leadership, and New Telegraph — has largely replicated government press releases without independent scrutiny, reinforcing the perception of a media-driven announcement rather than a bankable transaction.
Financial Implausibility
The numbers alone raise eyebrows. A $50Billion investment claim — equivalent to Nigeria’s entire federal budget — from an entity less than a year old, without bank references or audited accounts, strains credulity.
Project valuations have shifted repeatedly: from $15Billion to $30Billion, and now to $50Billion, justified vaguely as including “community programmes.” Such valuation inflation suggests an effort to boost optics rather than disclose actual financing.
Moreover, NEFEX and its UK counterpart list a combined share capital of only £100, offering no evidence of credit lines, guarantees, or institutional backers. Even their promised Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) pledges — youth empowerment, healthcare, and skills development — lack any contractual or financial commitments.
Regulatory and Compliance Exposure
While neither NEFEX nor its UK affiliate appears on sanctions lists, both structures raise classic AML (Anti-Money Laundering) and PEP (Politically Exposed Persons) red flags — cross-border ownership, rapid incorporation, and political association.
Environmental, local content, and host community requirements — including EIA, NCDMB clearance, and community consent — remain conspicuously absent. While the Olugbo of Ugbo Kingdom has reportedly been briefed, there is no public evidence of a signed agreement ensuring local benefit-sharing or environmental protection.
A Mirror of Nigeria’s Investment Dilemma
The Ondo refinery deal reflects Nigeria’s ongoing development paradox: a nation eager for transformative capital yet chronically vulnerable to speculative partnerships. Subnational governments, often excluded from federal funding pipelines, have grown dependent on MoU diplomacy — signing ambitious deals that seldom mature into tangible assets.
Governor Aiyedatiwa’s intent to industrialise Ondo is commendable. However, development cannot be built on press releases and ceremonial signings. True progress requires certified funding proofs, phased milestones, third-party audits, and transparent accountability mechanisms.
Still, the initiative demonstrates a growing assertiveness of Nigerian states seeking economic autonomy. If properly managed, Ondo’s ambition could inspire a more competitive subnational investment culture. But ambition must be grounded in verification, not spectacle.
Conclusion: Between Vision and Verification
The Ondo refinery project stands at a crossroads between vision and verification. On paper, it promises thousands of jobs, exports, and industrial rebirth. In reality, it rests on the untested foundations of recently incorporated entities with no proven financial capacity.
The discovery of Supreme International Monetary and Credit Organization Ltd in London — tied directly to NEFEX directors — deepens cconcerns about the authenticity of the claimed funding.
Before a single spade of sand is turned, Ondo State must demand:
Certified funding documentation and escrow validation,
Independent verification by reputable financial auditors, and
Public disclosure of beneficial ownership and governance structures.
Economic transformation is not achieved by rhetoric — it is earned through verifiable execution. If the Sunshine State truly seeks to illuminate Nigeria’s path, it must do so not with billion-dollar headlines, but with evidence-based investment and accountable governance.
Only then will Ondo’s promise rise from projection to proof — and from political spectacle to genuine legacy.
Kunle Odusola-Stevenson is a Lagos-based Public Relations and Policy Communications professional focused on media, energy, and strategic investment narratives.
A week after the Nigerian downstream petroleum regulator released a fact sheet containing full year data on petroleum product import, sales and local output, Dangote Petroleum Refinery announced plans to supply one billion five hundred million litres of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) monthly or 50Million litres per day, to the Nigerian market in December 2025 and January 2026.
Nigeria Downstream and Midstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority had declared that despite the refiner’s plan to supply 35Million litres per day, of PMS over the October 2024 to October 2025 period, the actual delivery was 18Million litres per day.
Dangote said, on December 3, 2025, that the target of 50Million litres per day “is aimed at ensuring uninterrupted nationwide fuel availability through the festive season and into the New Year”.
If achieved, it would be a maximal stretch to the Refinery’s supply into the country’s market since it started actual production 12 months ago. Between mid October 2025 and November 29, 2025, the facility has ramped up gasoline production, reaching…
Nigeria’s state hydrocarbon company NNPC has junked the option of selling its four crude oil refining plants, located in three states of the country.
After reviewing the report of the company-wide asset audit and portfolio benchmarking exercise, the NNPC’s incumbent, seven month old executive management and board of directors, decided it was best to get into partnership with companies who could run the facilities, while the NNPC takes a minority, but decisive seat.
The benchmarking exercise was conducted over the course of three months and submitted in September 2025.
In the last six weeks, the company, through the office of its Executive Vice President (EVP) Downstream,, has embarked on a global search for well-heeled and technically honed companies who could invest in, as well as run the refineries, with the NNPC taking a non-operating, minority stake.
The previous position, now discarded, was for the Nigerian state to fund the turn around maintenance and hand over the facilities to contracting firms to run, with NNPC having the oversight role.
Africa Oil+Gas Report learns that the negotiations have narrowed the number of likely investor/ technical partners to three, as of the week of November 3, 2025.
NNPC’s two refineries in Port Harcourt, in the east of the country, have been the main focus of the engagements with putative partners and, if it works, the proposal is to proceed to the two other refineries (the Warri Refinery in the mid-west and the Kaduna refinery in the north).
NNPC has -in the last six years- spent considerable energy on refurbishing the refineries, which have total nameplate capacity of 445,000Barrels Per Stream Day (BPSD). The facilities came on stream between 1965 and 1989, but have been largely non performing in the last 15years.
Between 2019 and mid-2023, Nigeria’s cabinet of ministers, known as the Federal Executive Council (FEC), approved a total of approximately $3Bllion for the phased rehabilitation of the four plants in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna refining complexes. But there have been significant commissioning hitches, despite the fact that the refurbishments have been lled by such bespoke contractors as Marie Technimont of Italy (Port Harcourt plants) and Daewoo Construction of Korea (Warri and Kaduna).
“With that kind of money spent, if we took the decision to sell, we would be stoned on the streets”, one ranking manager in the logistics unit declared. “It will be a massive destruction of value”.
In a recent Linked in post, NNPC’s Group CEO, Bayo Ojulari declared: “We are filled with determination! We are looking ahead with optimism to ensure our refineries operate effectively”.
NNPC sources (no one would speak on record, but this story benefits from interviews with several officials), acknowledge that the emergence of Dangote Refinery, with a name plate capacity of 650,000BPSD and (a lower limit of) gasoline output of 30Million litres a day, is a daunting competition, but Ojulari’s post declared that NNPC was continuing the work of refurbishing the refineries “to ensure NNPC’s capacity to meet the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) requirement as the supplier of last resort for petroleum products”.
Dangote Industries Ltd has run a single train, 650,000Barrels Per Stream Day (BPSD) Refinery for close to two years and is satisfied with the delivery.
The company’s proposed expansion to a 1.4MillonBPSD plant, comes with another single train.
In July 2025, DIL said it planned to raise capacity from 650,000BPSD to 700,000BPSD.
That capacity addition required “debottlenecking”, which will be completed such that the refinery should operate at 700,000BPSD by “early 2026”.
That minor expansion is separate from the 750,000BPSD second line, which was announced last Sunday, October 26, 2025. The world’s largest single train refinery is thus about to be expanded to become the world’s largest refinery.
Dangote refinery is designed with a dedicated power plant for pumping products from storage. While many refineries require turnaround maintenance every two years, Dangote is designed for four-year cycles.
The company plans to erect the new plant in the next three years, right in the same premises that the existing refinery is located. The new facility will utilise the existing infrastructure, including the jetty which juts into the Atlantic, as well as the evacuation and offloading ecosystem.
Dangote’s sights are set on all of Africa. “There is no African country that is not an importer of petroleum products. Algeria stopped importing but it now imports”, he told the roomful of journalists in the ballroom of the Eko Hotel.
Aliko Dangote was accompanied on the podium at the press conference by his associates, including Dan Kunle, a ranking energy analyst; Femi Otedola, one time major importer of diesel into the country and Robert Odiachi, a Governance & Policy specialist.
As part of the project, power generation at the facility would be increased from 500 megawatts to 1,000 megawatts.
Dangote threw jabs at Nigerian upstream operators, who produce the bulk of the country’s crude, saying that “they hide under the willing buyer-willing seller” policy to deny him crude supply. He repeated, time and again, that Nigeria should refine all of its crude and export refined products.
Mr. Dangote said he was confident that the policies of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will deliver on improved supply of feedstock. He noted, erroneously, that Nigeria was currently producing 1.8Million Barrels of oil a day and was targeting 2.4Million BPD by next year. In reality, the last time the country breached the 1.7MMBOPD (crude and condensate) mark was July 2025 (according to figures by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission). Then again, to achieve 2.4MMBOPD would require in excess of 600,000BOPD addition over the next 12 months, which is quite a stretch.
Still, the businessman’s constant look on the bright side is inspiring, even charming.
“This expansion reflects our confidence in Nigeria’s future, our belief in Africa’s potential, and our commitment to building energy independence for our continent and the world. It also is about confidence in Nigeria, in Africa, and in our capacity to shape our own energy future,” Dangote said. “It is the dream of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for Nigeria to emerge as one of the major suppliers of petroleum products in the world. And with his strong backing through his policies, we are taking on the challenge to make this happen”
Mr. Dangote said he was confident that the policies of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will deliver on improved supply of feedstock. He noted, erroneously, that Nigeria was currently producing 1.8Million Barrels of oil a day and was targeting 2.4Million BPD by next year. In reality, the last time the country breached the 1.7MMBOPD (crude and condensate) mark was July 2025 (according to figures by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission). Then again, to achieve 2.4MMBOPD would require in excess of 600,000BOPD addition over the next 12 months, which is quite a stretch.