Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote's refinery takes in a record 735,000 barrels a day

Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote's oil refinery near Lagos received a record amount of crude in October, and leaned more on oil shipped from the United States to keep its units supplied.

Crude deliveries to the Dangote Petroleum Refinery averaged 735,000 barrels a day last month, up from 665,000 barrels a day in September, according to ship-tracking data. The refinery took a record 23 cargoes during the month.

That is well above the plant's nameplate capacity of 650,000 barrels a day. The refinery, the world's largest single-train plant, reached 700,000 barrels a day in a performance test in June, and regulator data show it processed an average of about 736,000 barrels a day in August. Deliveries do not equal processing, since some of the oil can go into storage tanks at the Lekki Free Zone site.

The October figure caps a steady climb this year. Receipts averaged about 590,000 barrels a day from January to October, compared with about 410,000 barrels a day in 2025, and have averaged 650,000 barrels a day since April. Intake was held back in the first quarter by planned work on a crude distillation unit, then reached what was then a record 635,000 barrels a day in April.

More US oil

Nigerian grades supplied about 80% of October's deliveries, down from 87% in September. Most of the rest was U.S. West Texas Intermediate, which arrived at a rate of about 140,000 barrels a day, making it the second-largest grade after Nigeria's Bonny Light at 165,000 barrels a day.

Qua Iboe followed at 95,000 barrels a day, then Amenam at 65,000 and Forcados at 60,000. Escravos, Brass River, Utapate, CJ Blend and Bonga each supplied about 35,000 barrels a day.

The return of American crude marks a change from April, when the refinery took no U.S. oil at all and drew its entire supply from West Africa. Dangote has complained for years that he could not buy enough crude at home, and Nigerian rules now require producers to offer barrels to local refiners first. The plant bought at least 16 million barrels of Nigerian crude for delivery in October, industry sources said in September.

The mix of oil has stayed light and low in sulfur. October's crude averaged 36.9 degrees API gravity, a measure of how light the oil is, with a sulfur content of 0.15%, unchanged from September.

There is no sign of a slowdown in November. Two cargoes of about 1 million barrels each, of Escravos and Forcados crude, were waiting near the refinery's offshore buoys at the start of the month, and another million-barrel cargo of Amenam was on its way.

Fuel exports rise

In September, the refinery sent more fuel abroad than it sold at home. Combined exports of petrol, diesel and jet fuel rose 37% from August to 54.63 million liters a day, while deliveries to the domestic market fell 22% to 39.98 million liters a day, figures from the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority show. The plant ran at about 106% of its 650,000-barrel nameplate capacity that month, processing more crude than it received by drawing on stored oil.

The record intake comes a week after Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals FZE closed its initial public offering on Oct. 27, Nigeria's largest, after the Securities and Exchange Commission extended it by two weeks. It offered 4.1 billion new shares at ₦525 each to raise about ₦2.15 trillion ($1.58 billion), with an option to increase the offer by 30%. Allotment details are due to the regulator by Nov. 10, and trading on the Nigerian Exchange is expected to start in December.

Plan to double capacity

Dangote plans to spend about $14.3 billion to double the refinery's capacity to 1.4 million barrels a day by 2029. At that size, the plant would need about twice the crude it took in last month.

The $20 billion refinery began producing petrol in September 2024 and now supplies most of the petrol sold in Nigeria.

Dangote, the president of Dangote Industries, controls the refinery. His other businesses include Dangote Cement, Africa's largest cement producer. He is Africa's richest person, with a net worth of $55.4 billion, according to Forbes.

Figures were converted at ₦1,365 to the dollar.