Africa’s largest refinery has purchased crude oil from the United Arab Emirates for the first time, widening its supplier base as persistent shortages of Nigerian crude continue to complicate efforts to feed one of the world’s biggest single-train refining complexes.
According to S&P Global Commodity Insights, the Dangote Petroleum Refinery has secured two cargoes of UAE crude, marking its first procurement from a Middle Eastern supplier.
The purchase represents a significant shift for the refinery, which has traditionally sourced crude from Nigeria, other African producers and the United States.
The move comes as Nigeria continues to grapple with the contradiction of being Africa’s largest crude oil producer while struggling to consistently supply enough feedstock to its own flagship refinery.
Although the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) supplies between 13 and 15 cargoes of crude monthly to Dangote under the federal government’s naira-for-crude arrangement, the refinery has increasingly turned to overseas suppliers because of insufficient domestic crude availability and operational bottlenecks at export terminals.
