Nigeria’s Dangote refinery says it now produces more gasoline and diesel than can be consumed locally, as it backed a proposal to impose a 15% import duty on refined products.
The refinery is now “loading 45 million liters of PMS and 25 million liters of diesel daily, which exceeds Nigeria’s demand,” Anthony Chiejina, a spokesman for the Dangote Group, said in a statement on Saturday.
“This significant production capacity not only guarantees local supply, but also enhances energy security and reduces dependence on imports.”
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has approved the “immediate implementation” of a new fuel tax, according to an Oct. 21 letter written by his private secretary and seen by MoneyCentral.
The Federal Inland Revenue Service, which proposed the levy, said the implementation hasn’t started yet. The tax is meant to protect local refiners, according to the document.
The 650,000-barrel-per-day Dangote refinery is Nigeria’s main local crude processor. The state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has four refineries with a combined capacity of 445,000 barrels a day, but they haven’t operated for decades despite billions having been spent to rehabilitate them.
Africa’s richest person, Aliko Dangote, who owns the refinery opened in 2024, said this week that he would raise the processing capacity to 1.4 million barrels a day over the next three years to make it one of the biggest in the world.
“It would be unpatriotic for anyone to criticize the recently-announced tariff” Chiejina said. “It is designed to protect domestic industries from unfair competition and safeguard local production.”
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