FRENCH energy giant TotalEnergies has finalised its first supply agreement with Nigeria’s Dangote Refinery, CEO Patrick Pouyanne announced on Friday following a meeting with Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote.
‘We met this morning, we made the first deal between both of us,’ Pouyanne revealed during a panel at the Africa CEO Forum in Kigali, Rwanda. ‘The two CEOs met with our head of trading, and we found the way to convince them to make a deal.’
Dangote has been actively seeking crude supplies for his 650,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery, which will be the largest in Africa and Europe once it reaches full capacity. In May, Dangote Refinery issued a tender for two million barrels of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) Midland crude per month for a year starting in July, according to a tender document seen by Reuters.
The refinery, which commenced production in January, was constructed at a cost of $20bn. Dangote’s goal is to reduce Nigeria’s dependency on imported fuel and other refined products, despite the country being Africa’s largest oil producer.
‘The refinery has enough gasoline, diesel, and aviation fuel to supply the African continent and export to Brazil,’ Dangote stated during the panel. ‘We started producing jet fuel, we are producing diesel, by next month, we’ll be producing gasoline. What that will do, it will be able to take most African crudes.’
‘Our capacity is too big for Nigeria. It will be able to supply West Africa, Central Africa, and also Southern Africa,’ he added. Dangote also mentioned that the next phase of the refinery is set to begin early next year.
TotalEnergies is a key producer of crude in Nigeria, alongside major companies like Shell.
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