President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the African Export-Import Bank, George Elombi, has said the Dangote Petroleum Refinery played a key role in stabilising the naira by reducing Nigeria’s dependence on imported petroleum products.
Elombi disclosed this during a Mid-Year Media Roundtable with journalists in Abuja on Wednesday, where he also announced that Afreximbank had committed $2.5bn towards the refinery’s expansion while defending the bank’s development financing strategy across Africa.
He said the refinery had already demonstrated its strategic value during the recent Middle East tensions, when disruptions in the Gulf failed to create shortages of refined petroleum products across Africa.
“The crisis in the Gulf has happened; oil prices fled, but Africa didn’t lack in its refined petroleum products,” he said.
According to him, the refinery also helped ease pressure on Nigeria’s foreign exchange market by reducing fuel imports and enabling crude-for-naira transactions.
