The President of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, has said the company is expanding the storage capacity of its refinery by 600 million litres.

Speaking on Wednesday in Nassau, Bahamas, Dangote addressed the Afreximbank Annual Meetings and AfriCaribbean Trade & Investment Forum.

While the refined petroleum product storage capacity of the Dangote Petrochemical Refinery is currently 4.78 billion litres, he claimed that the development would raise the facility's storage capacity to 5.3 billion litres.

Concern about fuel price

When asked if his refinery would lower the price of gasoline at the pump, which is currently about N700 per litre, Dangote did not respond positively, but he did immediately narrate how the cost of diesel dropped from N1,700 to N1,200 as his fuel oversupplied the market.

He said:

“The issue of gasoline is certainly a different issue. That one is being dealt with by the government. But let me give you an example.

In the diesel, which the industries, transporters and everybody consume; when we first started, it was N1,700, and the dollar conversion was about N1,200 then.

Immediately when we started, within two weeks we brought down the price to N1,000. We took it from N1,700 to N1,200 and from N1,200 to N1,700, we have given more than 60 per cent drop in price.

“With the currency now back up to about N1,500 per dollar, the price is still below N1,200. That’s a big improvement, from N1,700 to N1,200. And the diesel is available, we are not living from hand to mouth anymore."

Dangote said it is extremely risky for the nation to lack strategic petrol reserves.

According to the business magnate, a refinery would be a strategic reserve for refined products.

But in our plant now, when you came, we had only 4.78 billion litres of various tankage capacity. But right now, we’re adding another 600 million.

“So effectively, as we go forward, the refinery will be the strategic reserve of the country in terms of petroleum products.”