
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries says the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and its efforts to ramp up Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) production are impacting the PMS market in Europe.
The 650,000-capacity Dangote refinery, which began operations in January last year, started producing PMS in September, years after the country had relied solely on importation for its fuel needs.
Since it started production, the refinery has exported petrol, diesel, and aviation fuel to other countries within and outside Africa.
A report by OPEC yesterday stated that the emergence of Dangote refinery has reduced the importation of petroleum products from Europe to Nigeria.
The report stated 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.
It added that 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 exacerbate the already bearish market sentiment.
Meanwhile, the Monthly Oil Market Report disclosed that the average daily crude production in Nigeria hit 1.507 million barrels in December, according to data OPEC got from secondary sources. 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.
Recall that the Dangote refinery was ranked above the 10 biggest refineries in Europe because of its capacity, according to data compiled by Bloomberg
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