Nigeria opens major oil refinery to process its own crude

Nigeria produces almost two million barrels of crude oil a day. By any measure, it should be rolling in cash and cheap energy. Not so. The nation of more than 200 million people has about as much energy to play with as Edinburgh, a city of half a million. A big part of the problem is a lack of functioning oil refineries, meaning Africa’s biggest economy spends vast amounts of its foreign exchange desperately importing refined petroleum products. Enter Africa’s richest man. Nigerian industrialist Aliko Dangote has spent years developing the continent’s largest refinery on the outskirts of Lagos. The $19 billion facility has the capacity to refine about a third of the country’s daily output and finally opened for business earlier this week. Expect big things. All going well, when it hits full production capacity, the plant is expected to refine 100 per cent of the country’s need for petrol, jet fuel, diesel and kerosene.