The Dangote oil refinery in Nigeria is set to receive its first cargo of 1 million barrels of crude oil from Shell International Trading and Shipping Co (STASCO) later on Friday, bringing the start of operations closer after years of delays.

Once fully running, the 650,000 barrel-per-day refinery funded by Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote will turn oil powerhouse Nigeria into a net exporter of fuels, a long-sought goal for the OPEC member that is almost totally reliant on imports.

Dangote Group said in a statement seen by Reuters on Friday that the cargo of 1 million barrels of Agbami crude it had purchased was the first of 6 million barrels that would enable an initial run of the refinery.

That will kick-start output of diesel, aviation fuel and Liquefied Petroleum Gas, before the refinery later starts producing Premium Motor Spirit.

A Dangote Group spokesperson said the STASCO cargo was expected to arrive at the refinery later on Friday.

The next four cargoes will be supplied by state oil firm NNPC in two to three weeks and a final cargo will come from ExxonMobil XOM.N, Dangote Group’s statement said.

Despite being Africa’s biggest oil producer, Nigeria experiences repeated fuel shortages. It spent $23.3 billion last year on petroleum product imports and consumes around 33 million litres of petrol a day.

“Our focus over the coming months is to ramp up the refinery to its full capacity,” Dangote was quoted as saying in the statement.

Nigeria commissioned the refinery in May, after it ran years behind schedule. At a cost of $19 billion, the massive petrochemical complex is one of Nigeria’s single largest investments.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe, Writing by Bhargav Acharya, Editing by Alexander Winning and Barbara Lewis)