LIVE UPDATES
Bloomberg, a financial data and media company, has placed the Dangote Refinery at the top of the list of the 10 largest refineries in Europe.
The refinery, located on Lekki-Epe Expressway, Lagos State, has a capacity exceeding that of many European refineries, with the ability to refine 650,000 barrels of petroleum products per day.
According to a report from Bloomberg, this capacity surpasses that of Shell’s Pernis Refinery in the Netherlands, which has an installed capacity of 404,000 barrels per day.
Additionally, the BP Rotterdam Refinery in the Netherlands has a capacity of 380,000 barrels per day, while the GOI Energy ISAB Refinery in Italy was constructed with a refining capacity of 360,000 barrels per day.
The TotalEnergies Antwerp refining facility in Belgium can refine 338,000 barrels per day.
Others listed in the report were the Orlen Plock Refinery in Poland with 327,000bpd; Shell’s Rheinland in Germany with 327,000bpd; Miro Refinery in Germany with 310,000 capacity; and the ExxonMobil Anterwep Refinery in Belgium with 307,000 capacity.
It added that the Saras Sarroch Refinery in Italy had 300,000 capacity; the ExxonMobil Fawley in England had 270,000bpd capacity.
The Bloomberg report described the Dangote Refinery as a ‘game changer’ and said it was taking advantage of cheaper US oil imports for as much as a third of its feedstock as it started up.
According to analysts, the refinery has been shipping products in recent weeks while readying two units to enable petrol output, which will deliver a long-promised transformation of the fuel market in Nigeria and the region.
“Dangote is going to influence Atlantic Basin gasoline markets this summer and for the rest of the year,” an oil expert, Alan Gelder, told Bloomberg.
According to the average estimate of analysts at WoodMac, FGE, and Citac, the refinery is running at about 300,000 barrels a day, nearly half its nameplate capacity.
The complex has started shipping jet fuel, diesel, and naphtha as it widens to a full slate of products.
Reuters recently reported that the Dangote oil refinery could end a decades-long petrol trade from Europe to Africa, worth $17 billion a year.
Reuters, quoting analysts and traders, said the Dangote refinery was heaping pressure on European refineries already at risk of closure from heightened competition, adding that the refinery would be the largest in Africa and Europe when it reaches full capacity.
About a third of Europe’s 1.33mbpd average petrol exports in 2023 went to West Africa, a bigger chunk than any other region, with most of those exports ending up in Nigeria, Reuters said, quoting Kpler data.
