The Dangote Petroleum Refinery is awaiting up to 12 million barrels of crude oil from the United States, the Africa Report reported on Monday.

The refinery resorted to crude importation as local supply challenges hindered the new $20bn refinery’s push to reach full refining capacity.

Recall that the refinery plans to reach its 650,000 barrels per day capacity in June this year.

However, low local crude supply from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited is currently a challenge to this plan to ramp up daily production.

The 12 million barrels of crude has already left the United States and will land in Nigeria next month, according to the report.

“About 12 million barrels of crude have departed the US and should arrive in Nigeria by February,” an insider source told The Africa Report.

The PUNCH reports that the Dangote Petroleum Refinery is importing more crude oil as supply from the NNPC becomes insufficient for fuel production at the $20bn Lekki-based facility.

Officials at the plant said the facility has ramped up production to about 500,000 barrels per day, with the target of hitting the 650,000bpd mark by June this year.

While affirming that the naira-for-crude deal is still on as directed by President Bola Tinubu last year, sources told our correspondent that the facility will have to import more crude to meet its target.

The NNPC is reportedly struggling to supply 350,000bpd to the Dangote refinery from the 450,000bpd crude meant for Nigeria’s local consumption.

With its current production capacity of 500,000bpd, officials said there is a need to look beyond the shores of Nigeria for the feedstock.

It was said that the feedstock needed by the refinery daily cannot be solely supplied by the state-owned oil company, NNPC.

“Currently, we are at 500,000bpd; we will ramp to 650,000 by midyear. You know what it means? So, it is a normal process to source crude oil anywhere it is available,” an official at the plant told The PUNCH.

Recall that in July, President Tinubu ordered the NNPC to sell crude oil to local refineries in naira.

In October, the committee supervising the naira-for-crude deal commenced the sale of crude to only the Dangote refinery in naira, saying it would sell to only petrol-producing refineries.

However, with the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries coming on stream, more refineries would be considered for the naira-for-crude arrangement.

According to the crude oil production forecast of producing oil companies and the refining requirement of functional refineries in Nigeria signed by the Chief Executive of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, Gbenga Komolafe, the Dangote refinery would require 550,000 barrels of a blend of Nigerian crude oil daily, 17.05 million barrels monthly, and 99.55 million barrels between January and June 2025.

The Dangote refinery is already building eight more tanks to store imported crude. The facility is planning to stockpile imported crude oil as local supplies become unreliable.

Officials of the refinery were quoted as saying that low crude supply from the NNPC “is driving import dependence.”

The building of eight additional tanks will see crude storage capacity at the refinery jump by 41.67 per cent to 3.4 billion litres.

“Importing crude from other countries instead of buying locally means that our crude stockpiles will have to be higher,” the Vice President in charge of the oil and gas business at Dangote Industries, Devakumar Edwin, was quoted as having said recently.

In May 2024, the refinery reportedly issued a term tender for the purchase of two million barrels of West Texas Intermediate Midland crude monthly for 12 months starting in July last year, amounting to 24 million barrels of crude in one year.

The Dangote refinery currently supplies petrol, diesel, and aviation fuel to Nigeria and other countries.