In a landmark announcement, Africa’s richest man and Chairman of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, has assured that Nigeria will no longer need to import fuel/petrol from next month. This statement was made at the Africa CEO Forum Annual Summit in Kigali on Friday, marking a significant step towards energy self-sufficiency for the nation.
“Right now, Nigeria has no cause to import anything apart from gasoline and by sometime in June, within the next four or five weeks, Nigeria shouldn’t import anything like gasoline; not one drop of litre,” said Dangote.
He further outlined the progress made by the refinery, emphasizing its role in making Africa self-sufficient in various energy and industrial sectors. “We have enough gasoline to give to at least the entire West Africa, diesel to give to West Africa and Central Africa. We have enough aviation fuel to give to the entire continent and also export some to Brazil and Mexico,” he added.
Dangote also mentioned that the refinery is producing key industrial materials, aiming to reduce Africa’s dependency on imported goods. “Today, our polypropylene and our polyethylene will meet the entire demand of Africa today and we are doing base oil, which is like engine oil, we are doing linear benzyl, which is raw material to produce detergent. We have 1.4 billion people in population, nobody is producing that in Africa,” he stated.
He highlighted the broader vision of making Africa self-sufficient in fertilizers, aiming to stop all fertilizer imports within the next three to four years. “As I said, give us three or a maximum of four years and Africa will not, I repeat, not import any more fertilizer from anywhere. We will make Africa self-sufficient in both potash, phosphate, and urea,” Dangote assured.
Since the commissioning of the refinery in February, significant milestones have been achieved. “We just commissioned in February and now we are producing jet fuel, we are producing diesel and by next month, we will be producing gasoline,” he said, outlining the refinery’s capacity to handle 650,000 barrels per day.
Dangote also acknowledged the challenges faced, particularly pushback from those benefiting from the status quo. Despite skepticism, he emphasized the importance of commitment and investment in Africa. “The pushback was very impactful because there are people who have actually been used to just making money trading without refinery and you know, to get people who are committed to Africa has to be people that believe in investing in Africa,” he explained.
He called for policy consistency and support from African leaders to facilitate ease of trading and investment across the continent, emphasizing that policy inconsistency remains a major challenge for entrepreneurs.