Nigeria predicted to become Africa’s biggest oil refiner by 2025 — report – The North Africa Post

Nigeria may turn out to be greatest oil refiner within the area by 2025, Hawilti, a pan-African funding analysis agency, has predicted, a prediction that comes as a shock in mild of the west African nation’s longstanding battle with scarcity of petroleum merchandise for its inhabitants, Africa’s largest.

In keeping with Hawilti’s latest report titled “Refineries watch This fall 2022”, Africa will witness important transformations in its gasoline provide safety in 2023, as West Africa homes the biggest refining capability on the sub-continent, however solely 23% of it’s at the moment operational. The authors argue that the prospect of a brand new non-public refinery turning into operational in Nigeria may assist redefine the nation’s native refining capability. “Each the opening of the Dangote refinery and the rehabilitation of state-owned refineries have the potential to make Nigeria Africa’s greatest refining hub by 2025,” the report mentioned. It additional states that the market can be pushed by non-public oil producers and asset builders who’re constructing modular refineries subsequent to oilfields within the Niger Delta.

The Hawilti examine additionally noticed that traditionally, crude theft all through 2022 has supplied further incentives for area house owners to develop refining amenities and monetize their oil themselves as a substitute of injecting it into third-party export pipelines. “2023 may see motion on a number of of them, together with enlargement plans at present amenities,” it mentioned. The report additionally notes that the long-awaited Dangote Refinery is lastly anticipated to start out manufacturing this 12 months and that its commissioning is already sending hopes that it may lastly begin rebalancing Nigeria’s commerce deficit. On high of that, Nigeria can be engaged on the rehabilitation of its three state-owned refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna totaling some 445,000 bpd of refining capability.