Dangote refinery will start supplying petrol in the fourth quarter of 2024, according to Standard and Poor’s’ Global Commodities, S & P.

Kelly Norways, an African energy expert at the S&P, disclosed this in a podcast titled ‘Exploring West Africa’s oil product flows in a changing refining landscape’.

She said the Dangote refinery will significantly reduce energy imports across the West African sub-region, putting the figure for petrol as much as 290,000 barrels daily from 2024 to 2026.

“We are starting to see signs of activities, but all eyes are on when we’ll start to see gasoline production commence from that project. There is significant pressure from the Nigerian government for significant volume of that supply to be sent to the domestic market.

“When we see that start scale-up is still subject to debate. Dangote has recently been espousing some punchy timelines. They have most recently been saying that they are looking to produce gasoline by May. But in reality, our analysts expect that would be something like the fourth quarter of this year in a more realistic timeline,” he said.

The Dangote refinery was officially commissioned in May 2023 but has been unable to operate at full capacity. However, it began receiving crude oil around December and finally started distributing diesel to marketers in the local market in March.

Last week, the refinery announced the reduction in diesel price to N1,000 per litre from N1,600 per litre price.

Meanwhile, the Dangote refinery and oil marketers have hinted at the commencement of petrol sales next month.