The Dangote Petroleum Refinery is set to receive up to 12 million barrels of crude oil from the U.S., as reported by the Africa Report on Monday. 

Due to local supply issues, the refinery has turned to importing crude to help the new $20 billion facility reach its full refining capacity. 

It's worth noting that the refinery aims to hit a daily capacity of 650,000 barrels by June this year. 

However, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited is currently facing challenges in providing enough local crude, which is affecting the plan to boost daily production. 

The shipment of 12 million barrels has already departed from the U.S. and is expected to arrive in Nigeria next month, according to the report.

“About 12 million barrels of crude have departed the US and should arrive in Nigeria by February,” an insider source told The Africa Report.

The Dangote Petroleum Refinery is stepping up its crude oil imports since the supply from NNPC isn't enough to keep up with fuel production at the $20 billion facility in Lekki. 

Plant officials mentioned they've increased production to around 500,000 barrels per day, aiming to reach 650,000 bpd by June. 

They confirmed that the naira-for-crude agreement, initiated by President Bola Tinubu last year, is still in effect. However, sources indicated that the refinery will need to bring in more crude to hit its goals. 

The NNPC is reportedly having a tough time supplying the refinery with the 350,000 bpd it needs from the 450,000 bpd allocated for Nigeria's local use. 

Given its current output of 500,000 bpd, officials noted that they need to look outside Nigeria for additional feedstock, as the state-owned NNPC can't provide all the crude required daily.

“Currently, we are at 500,000bpd; we will ramp to 650,000 by midyear. You know what it means? So, it is a normal process to source crude oil anywhere it is available,” according to a plant official.

Back in July, President Tinubu instructed the NNPC to start selling crude oil to local refineries in naira.

Then in October, the committee overseeing the naira-for-crude deal kicked off sales to just the Dangote refinery, stating they would only sell to refineries that produce petrol.

But with the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries getting ready to operate, more refineries will be included in the naira-for-crude plan.

According to the production forecast from oil companies and the refining needs of active refineries in Nigeria, as signed by Gbenga Komolafe, the Chief Executive of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, the Dangote refinery will need 550,000 barrels of a mix of Nigerian crude oil each day, totaling 17.05 million barrels a month, and 99.55 million barrels from January to June 2025.

The Dangote refinery is also in the process of building eight more tanks to store imported crude, as they want to stock up on it due to unreliable local supplies.

Refinery officials mentioned that the low crude supply from the NNPC is making them more dependent on imports.

With the addition of these eight tanks, the refinery's crude storage capacity will increase by 41.67% to 3.4 billion liters.

“Importing crude from other countries instead of buying locally means that our crude stockpiles will have to be higher,” the Vice President in charge of the oil and gas business at Dangote Industries, Devakumar Edwin, was quoted as having said recently.

In May 2024, the refinery announced a term tender to buy two million barrels of West Texas Intermediate Midland crude each month for a year, kicking off in July of the previous year. That totals up to 24 million barrels of crude over the year.

Right now, the Dangote refinery is providing petrol, diesel, and aviation fuel to Nigeria and several other nations.