First Major Crude Supply to Dangote Refinery to Arrive Today

In a notable development for Nigeria’s oil industry, the OTIS tanker, carrying a substantial cargo of 950,000 barrels of Agbami crude, is currently en route to Lekki, Nigeria.

This is the first set of crude supply to Dangote refinery.

This shipment, scheduled to arrive at approximately 1900 GMT today (8 pm Nigerian time), marks the first major supply of crude to Dangote’s offshore crude receiving terminal.

The Suezmax tanker, chartered by NNPCL, embarked on its journey on December 6. According to the S&P Global MINT tanker tracking platform, the vessel’s destination is Lekki, the closest land port to the Dangote refinery.

This move signals the beginning of operations for the Dangote refinery, a significant addition to Nigeria’s oil refining capabilities.

According to S&P, The OTIS tanker loaded a 950,000-barrel cargo of Nigeria’s Agbami crude on December 6 and is currently flagged as en route to Lekki, which is the nearest land port to Dangote’s offshore crude receiving terminal and is expected to arrive later on December 7 at around 1900 GMT.

Operated by Chevron, Agbami is one of Nigeria’s largest deepwater developments pumping about 100,000 b/d in the central Niger Delta. Agbami produces light sweet crude with a gravity of 47.9 API and a sulfur content of 0.04%, according to Platts’ Periodic Table of Oil. The crude is known in the market for yielding a large proportion of naphtha and kerosene.

NNPCL has chartered several other tankers to transport further crude shipments from Nigerian offshore fields to the refinery later this month.

On November 2, NNPCL plans to provide the 650,000 barrels per day Dangote oil refinery, with up to six shipments of crude oil in December for testing, based on information from industry sources both at NNPCL and Dangote refinery.

The report specified that six shipments, totaling 200,000 barrels per day, are set for December as part of a one-year agreement.

Meanwhile, the volumes for the following months will be determined by mutual consent and availability. Other sources mentioned a plan for 4-5 cargoes, equivalent to at least 130,000 barrels per day.

Before this time, the refinery had faced several delays after its commissioning earlier this year.

Note that the Dangote refinery had missed the diesel and aviation fuel refining deadline previously set by the Dangote Group CEO, Devakumar Edwin during a September 2023 interview with S&P Global Commodity Insights.

On November 26, Aliko Dangote confirmed that the refinery will indeed begin operations in December 2023. According to Dangote, the long-awaited refinery is starting with 350,000 barrels a day, He also confirmed that a deal had already been clinched for the first cargo of about 6 million barrels of crude for delivery in December 2023.