Nigeria's Dangote refinery to be operational by early-2022 despite shipping constraints

The 650,000 b/d Dangote refinery in Nigeria -- set to be Africa's largest – is on track to be operational from early next year despite some delays caused by shipping constraints, Devakumar V.G. Edwin, an executive director at Dangote Industries, told S&P Global Platts on Nov. 1.

"The work is progressing well towards the targeted mechanical completion by the end of the year," Edwin said in a statement.

"However, the shipping of [some] goods from India is still a constraint, since, getting vessels out of India has become extremely difficult. But we are still hopeful of meeting our target," he added.

The project suffered some delays last year due to the coronavirus pandemic. But in 2021, the economic turmoil caused by COVID-19 exposed many vulnerabilities in supply chains leading to the delay in transport of some equipment to the refinery.

The start-up date of the refinery, which was first announced in 2013, has been repeatedly delayed.

Critical importance

State-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp, which is expected to supply 300,000 b/d of crude to 650,000 b/d refinery, is currently in talks with Dangote to acquire a 20% stake in the project.

This refinery, located on the outskirts of Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos, is extremely significant for Nigeria, which relies heavily on fuel imports for its needs.

Nigeria imports around 1 million-1.25 million mt/month of gasoline due to inadequate domestic refining capacity. All its refineries, with combined nameplate capacity to refine 445,000 b/d of crude oil, are currently shut down.

The plant's crude distillation unit has been designed to process 12 crudes at one time and has been engineered to process three Nigerian crude grades -- Escravos, Bonny Light and Forcados.

The plant will yield 327,000 b/d of gasoline, 244,000 b/d of gasoil/diesel, 56,000 b/d of jet fuel/kerosene as well as 290,000 mt/year of propane/LPG when fully operational, according to a Dangote presentation given at an industry event last year.

It will also produce 830,000 mt/year of polypropylene, 600,000 mt/year of slurry, 290,000 mt/year of propane and 38,000 mt/year of sulfur.

The refinery received most of its key refining units, such as the columns that make up the plant's crude distillation unit reactor, regenerator and fluid catalytic cracker, in 2019.