The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC has revealed that with the coming of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and its production of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) PMS, the European market has been impacted negatively. The 650,000-capacity Dangote refinery, which began operations in January last year, started producing PMS in September, this is coming years after Nigeria and other African countries were relying solely on importation for its fuel needs on European countries.
It is not about Nigeria alone, since the Dangote refinery started production; the refinery is now exporting its petrol, diesel, and aviation fuel to other countries within and outside Africa threatening to extinguish the European market.
In a report shared by OPEC yesterday, it stated that since the emergence of Dangote refinery in Nigeria, it has reduced the importation of petroleum products from Europe into Nigeria.
The report partly said, “The ongoing operational ramp-up efforts at Nigeria’s new Dangote refinery and its gasoline (petrol) exports to the international market will likely weigh further on the European gasoline market.
“Continued gasoline production in Nigeria, a country that has relied heavily on imports to meet its domestic fuel needs in the past, will most likely continue to free up gasoline volumes in international markets which will call for new destinations and flow adjustments for the extra volumes going forward.”
In the last quarter of 2024, OPEC said “imports also declined, particularly oil product imports, improving the outlook for the external sector.”
The report added that the gasoline crack spread in Rotterdam against Brent increased slightly on healthy exports although gasoline inventories at the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp storage hub remained high.
Meanwhile, the gasoline inventory builds are expected to extend into the coming month amid a lengthening gasoline balance in the Atlantic Basin due to winter-season demand-side pressures.
OPEC maintained that the ongoing recovery in gasoline refinery output levels will likely intensify the already gloomy market sentiment.
However, according to data OPEC got from secondary sources the Monthly Oil Market Report revealed that the average daily crude production in Nigeria hit 1.507 million barrels in December.
It was said to have risen by 12,000bpd, from 1.477mbpd in November.
However, the figure supplied by the government was 1.485mbpd for December. This aligns with that of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission.
According to data compiled by Bloomberg, the Dangote refinery was ranked above the 10 biggest refineries in Europe because of its capacity.
The $20bn Dangote refinery can refine 650,000 barrels of petroleum products per day.
The report stated that this is over 246,00bpd capacity more than Shell’s Pernis refinery located in the Netherlands.
It added that the Pernis refinery has an installed capacity of 404,000bpd the biggest in Europe. The BP Rotterdam in the Netherlands has 380,000 capacity.
Bloomberg also said the GOI Energy ISAB refinery in Italy was built with a refining capacity of 360,000bpd.
