Dangote Petroleum Refinery is sourcing between 30% and 40% of its crude oil from overseas despite Nigeria producing about 1.6 million barrels per day.
David Bird, chief executive officer of Dangote Refinery, said imported crude currently accounts for about 30% to 40% of the refinery’s intake as the 650,000-barrel-per-day facility diversifies its supply sources.
The refinery has purchased crude from countries including the United States and Guyana as well as other African producers to supplement supplies obtained from Nigeria.
The reliance on imports presents an unusual situation for Africa’s largest oil producer, particularly as Dangote was developed partly to leverage Nigeria’s substantial crude resources and reduce the country’s dependence on imported petroleum products.
Nigeria currently produces around 1.6 million barrels of crude oil per day. In June, crude production averaged 1.56 million bpd, its highest level in more than six years, while total production including condensates reached 1.735 million bpd.
However, the volume produced nationally does not automatically translate into equivalent supplies being available to domestic refiners.
A significant portion of crude associated with Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited’s joint-venture operations is committed to oil-backed loans and pre-export financing arrangements, reducing the volumes immediately available for sale to Dangote Refinery.
NNPC does not publicly disclose the full extent of those obligations.
Domestic crude supply has remained a wider challenge for Nigeria’s refining industry.
Regulatory data earlier this year showed producers delivered only 28.5 million barrels to domestic refineries during the first quarter of 2026 despite 61.9 million barrels being allocated under the Domestic Crude Supply Obligation.
Actual deliveries therefore represented about 46% of allocated volumes during the period.
The challenge facing Dangote is not limited to the availability of Nigerian crude. The economics of buying locally can also influence where the refinery obtains its feedstock.
Some Nigerian crude supplied domestically is priced against international benchmarks such as Brent, which incorporate freight and logistics costs.
Dangote argues that this can leave domestic refiners paying for logistics components they do not necessarily incur when crude is delivered locally.
Edwin Devakumar, Group Vice President of Dangote Industries Limited, said some Nigerian crude cargoes have consequently been more expensive for the refinery than comparable imported barrels, although he did not disclose the size of the price difference.
Imported barrels are generally purchased in dollars, exposing the refinery to foreign-exchange and international freight costs.
However, Dangote’s coastal location provides flexibility to receive crude directly from international suppliers, allowing the company to compare domestic offers with cargoes available in the global market.
The refinery has imported grades including U.S. WTI Midland crude.
The Federal Government and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission have been working on changes intended to improve crude availability and pricing for domestic refiners.
Among proposals under consideration is a crude-swap arrangement that could directly match Nigerian producers with local refinineries, reducing delivery times and logistics costs.
Authorities have also considered allowing refiners that lift crude closer to production facilities to receive pricing adjustments reflecting freight and handling costs that would otherwise be embedded in benchmark prices.
Compliance with Nigeria’s domestic crude supply framework has improved more recently, with the upstream regulator reporting that deliveries against allocated volumes had risen above 90% from less than 43% in the preceding quarter.
However, the measurement reflects deliveries against regulatory allocations rather than the proportion of total refinery demand being satisfied locally.
The supply issue is becoming increasingly important as Dangote expands operations.
The refinery reached its initial maximum capacity of 650,000 barrels per day in February and has already tested production at 700,000 barrels per day. Management plans to increase capacity to about 1.4 million barrels per day within three years.
Such an expansion would substantially increase the amount of crude required to keep the facility operating efficiently, making reliable access to competitively priced feedstock increasingly important to its long-term profitability.
Dangote’s growing refining capacity has already changed Nigeria’s petroleum trade. Seaborne petroleum-product exports from the country have increased seven-fold since 2023, largely because of output from the refinery, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
But with as much as 40% of its current crude intake still sourced internationally, resolving Nigeria’s domestic crude supply and pricing challenges will remain central to determining how much of the refinery’s expanding feedstock requirement can ultimately be supplied from within the country.