Nigeria’s Mega Refinery Halts Petroleum Sales in Naira

Nigeria’s Dangote Petroleum Refinery has suspended sales of petroleum in the country after it stopped receiving naira-denominated crude cargoes from the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC). In a statement on Wednesday, Dangote Petroleum Refinery said it has temporarily halted the sale of petroleum products in naira. .’’..to avoid a mismatch between our sales proceeds and our crude oil purchase obligations, which are currently denominated in U.S. dollars. To date, our sales of petroleum products in naira have exceeded the value of naira-denominated crude we have received. As a result, we must temporarily adjust our sales currency to align with our crude procurement currency.”

Last year, Nigeria’s beleaguered energy sector witnessed a very significant event after the Dangote Oil Refinery began producing gasoline and selling it domestically to NNPC, marking the first time in decades Africa’s largest oil producer is refining its own crude. The state-of-the-art $20.5 billion refinery was launched in January 2024, but only began producing gasoline in September. The giant refinery has a capacity to process 650,000 barrels of crude per day, considerably bigger than any refinery in Europe and more than enough for Nigeria’s needs. To sweeten the deal further, the facility has been buying crude and selling refined fuels in Nigeria in the local currency, saving the country’s much-needed foreign exchange, especially the U.S. dollar.

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Unfortunately, the arrival of the giant refinery has coincided with developments completely out of his control. Since the 1970s, the NNPC has been subsidizing fuel prices for local buyers. Every year, the state-owned firm has been gradually clawing this money back by depositing lower royalty payments with the Nigerian treasury. However, Nigeria’s new President Bola Tinubu was forced to scrap the subsidy in 2023 after it cost the government $10bn, more than 40% of the total money it collected in taxes. Further, he stopped the policy of artificially propping up the value of the naira, and let market forces determine its value. Nigerians are now paying ~$2.30 per gallon of gasoline, dirt-cheap by U.S. standards but triple what they were paying just a couple of years ago.

By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com

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