Fuel Importation: Dangote Laments $90bn Annual Loss To Nigeria, Others

Oil tycoon Aliko Dangote says it doesn’t make economic sense for Africa to import $90 billion worth of petroleum products annually from Europe and Asia.

The imported products, he said, include petrol, diesel, and natural gas.

Dangote owns the $20 billion petrol-chemical  refinery situated in Lagos, Nigerians and has recently upgrade the refinery to 700,000 barrel per day from the initial 650,000 barrel per day.

The Richest man in the continent had also recently promised to purchase the entire crude oil produced in the country to service his refinery, as part of his plan to make the country energy sufficient.

He has also crashed prices for the products apart from purchasing 4000 CNG -powered trucks to make the distribution of diesel and petrol or PMS seamless across the country.

While speaking in Abuja at the Global Commodity Insights Conference on West African Refined Fuel Market, organised by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, NMDPRA, in partnership with S&P Global, themed: “Creating a West African Reference Market for Oil and Gas Products” Dangote said a whopping $90 billion is lost annually from the importation of finished petroleum products.

The products are refined in Europe, dumped in countries such as Nigeria and others, which as a result also lose jobs to those countries where crude oil is refined before they are exported to consuming African countries.

He said while Europe and Asia refine 95 percent of crude oil to finished products, Africa only refines 40 percent of its crude.

Dangote: “To compare, Europe and Asia refine around 95 per cent of their consumption. So, while we produce plenty of crude, we still import over 120 million tonnes of refined petroleum products each year, effectively exporting jobs and importing poverty into our continent. That’s a $90 billion market opportunity being captured by regions with surplus refining capacity.

“To put this in perspective, only about 15 per cent of African countries have a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) greater than $90 billion. We are effectively handing over an entire continent’s economic potential to others—year after year.”