Founder, Chairman, and CEO of ?angote Group, Aliko ?angote, has said his refinery has secured a licence to refine more than 300,000 barrels of Nigerian crude per day and will begin to process gasoline soon.
According to Bloomberg, ?angote, in an interview in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on the sidelines of the Saudi-Nigeria business roundtable, said: “We don’t want to start our refinery with foreign goods, we want to start with Nigerian crude”.
“We’re more than ready and you will see our gasoline products soon”, he added.
The refinery was supposed to start production in August, but missed that target in addition to several others over the years. But ?angote insists that his refinery will start producing “very very soon”. The refinery’s first priority, he said, is to supply gasoline to Nigeria before exporting elsewhere, including the West African region, he further explained.
According to the Executive Director, ?angote Group, Devakumar Edwin, the ?angote Petroleum Refinery was importing crude oil and expected its first cargo in about two weeks.
The 650,000 barrel-a-day facility, which is expected to produce 27 million litres of diesel, 11 million litres of kerosene and nine million litres of jet fuel, will receive crude from other producers in Nigeria, as well as the country’s state oil company, the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Ltd. (NNPCL).
Nigeria increased its oil output by 60,000 barrels per day last month, reaching 1.49 million barrels per day, the highest in almost two years.
