AfrOil: Dangote refinery eyes start-up in H2-2022

The exact starting date of the new Dangote oil refinery will be dependent on the outcome of a testing programme that is due to wrap up late in the third quarter of 2022, a plant official has said.

“Barring any hitches during this period of the test run of the units, the refinery will start refining crude into [petroleum] products by the fourth quarter of this year,” the official, who was not named, told S&P Global Platts on January 24. He was speaking not long after Aliko Dangote, the president of Dangote Industries, said he expected the plant to begin operating before the end of September 2022 at an initial capacity of 540,000 barrels per day (bpd).

Speaking at a press briefing in Lagos on January 22, Dangote said nearly all of the work on the refinery was already finished. “Mechanical work on the refinery is complete, and hopefully before the end of [the] third quarter we should be in the market,” he stated.