Dangote Refinery does not import petrol, says Bird

Dangote Petroleum Refinery has dismissed claims that it imports finished petrol, diesel or jet fuel, saying such assertions misunderstand how modern merchant refineries operate and ignore the scale of processing and value addition taking place at its Lekki facility.

Speaking during a stakeholders’ engagement, David Bird, the refinery’s CEO, said the $20 billion plant imports only unfinished feedstocks, which are further processed locally into refined products that meet the highest global standards.

“We are a refinery. We have no interest in importing finished products,” Bird said. “What we import are intermediate feedstocks that are globally traded and must be processed before they can become petrol, diesel or jet fuel.”

According to the refinery’s management, imported feedstocks include cracked gasoline (petrol), light cycle oil, high-sulphur reformate and other intermediate materials that cannot be used directly in vehicles.

They said these are processed through Dangote’s hydrocrackers, residue fluid catalytic cracking units and alkylation units to produce finished fuels.

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“These materials should never end up at a petrol pump in the state they arrive,” Bird said. “They are cleaned, converted and blended here into fully compliant products.”

The refinery is designed to run at consistently high utilisation, a key requirement in capital-intensive industries where underused assets erode profitability.

Dangote Refinery currently produces Euro V petrol and diesel with sulphur content of 50 parts per million, and is technically ready to produce 10 ppm fuels once Nigeria upgrades its national specifications.

Bird said the quality of output is reflected in the refinery’s export record, with gasoline shipped to New York Harbour and jet fuel supplied to Dubai, two markets with stringent fuel standards.

“If our products were not on specification, they simply would not be accepted in these markets,” he said.