The President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, has presented the first sample of Premium Motor Spirit, otherwise known as petrol.
Dangote made this presentation on Tuesday in a broadcast at his refinery situated in the Ibeju-Lekki Area of Lagos State. He declared, “it’s a celebration day” for Nigerians.
The 650,000-capacity refinery engaged in a test run of the product.
“I would like to salute the people of Nigeria and the government of President Bola Tinubu for giving us the platform for growth, development, and prosperity. I also want to thank him personally for creating the idea of the Naira for crude. Doing that will give Naira stability.
“As we have this refinery working, it will show the true consumption of Nigeria; we can track every loaded truck and ship,” he said
He also said that his refinery will meet the demands of not only Nigerians but also sub-Saharan Africa.
He assured all citizens that they “are now going to have good petrol while the engines of your vehicles will last longer. You will not be having an engine issue, which a lot of us were having. It won’t happen at all.”
“The quality here will match that of anywhere in the world; US, America, we will make sure that nobody will beat us in terms of quality,” Dangote said.
He said as soon as the refinery finalises modalities with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), the product will hit the market.
“As soon as we finalise with the NNPCL, our product will start going into the market.
“We will help to restore industry and manufacturing. We will begin real import substitution, which is what we have, you know, saving foreign exchange, earning foreign exchange, which will stabilise the naira, and it will also help bring down inflation and cost of living,” he stated.
Last December, Dangote, Africa’s leading industrialist, commenced operations at his $20bn facility sited in Lagos with 350,000 barrels a day.
The refinery, which was initially bogged by regulatory battles, hopes to achieve its full capacity of 650,000 barrels per day by the end of the year.
The refinery has begun the supply of diesel and aviation fuel to marketers in the country and now petrol.
