Ghana could buy petroleum products from Nigeria’s Dangote Petroleum Refinery once the facility is operating at full capacity, cutting more expensive exports from Europe, the head of the country’s oil regulator said on Monday.
At the Oil Trading and Logistics Africa Downstream oil conference in Lagos, the Chairman of Ghana’s National Petroleum Authority, Mustapha Abdul-Hamid said this could end monthly fuel imports from Europe of $400 million.
The $20 billion Lekki-based Dangote Refinery commenced the release of Premium Motor Spirit, (popularly called petrol) into the Nigerian market last 15 September.
But despite this, marketers of the product in Nigeria have since commenced the importation of PMS in hundreds of millions of litres following the total deregulation of the downstream oil sector in Nigeria by the Federal Government.
However, the Ghanaian petroleum authority official said on Monday that his country might start importing fuel from the Nigerian refinery.
“If the refinery reaches 650,000 bpd a day capacity, all that volume cannot be consumed by Nigeria alone, so instead of us importing as we do right now from Rotterdam, it will be much easier for us to import from Nigeria and I believe that will bring down our prices”. Hamid said.
Built by Nigerian billionaire, Alhaji Aliko Dangote the refinery is expected to operate at near full capacity at the end of the year, and analysts believe it could be fully operational in the first quarter of 2025.
Hamid said that importing from Nigeria rather than Europe would bring down the prices of other goods and services by removing freight costs. Eventually, he said African countries would agree on a common currency that should dampen demand for dollars.
Ghana’s economy, which grew by 6.9 per cent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2024, has been driven largely by a strong expansion of the extractive sector which has boosted demand for fuel.
Credit: Reuters
