French energy major, TotalEnergies, had struck its first supply deal with Dangote Refinery in Nigeria, Chief Executive Patrick Pouyanne said on Friday, following a meeting with Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote.
“We met this morning, we made the first deal between both of us,” Pouyanne told a panel at the Africa CEO Forum in Kigali, Rwanda. “The two CEOs met with our head of trading and we found the way to convince them to make a deal,” he added.
Dangote has been trying to secure crude supplies for his 650,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery, the largest in Africa and Europe when it reaches full capacity.
In May, the company put out a tender for two million barrels of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) Midland crude every month for a year starting in July, a tender document seen by Reuters showed.
The oil refinery, which started production in January, cost $20 billion to build. Dangote aims to reverse Nigeria’s reliance on imports for fuel and other refined products even though the country is Africa’s biggest oil producer.
Dangote said the refinery had enough gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel to supply the African continent and export to Brazil.
“We started producing jet fuel, we are producing diesel, by next month, we’ll be producing gasoline. What that will do, it will be able to take most African crudes,” Dangote told the panel.
“Our capacity is too big for Nigeria. It will be able to supply West Africa, Central Africa and also Southern Africa,” he added.
The next phase of the refinery will start early next year, Dangote said.
TotalEnergies is one of the major producers of crude in Nigeria alongside Shell, Exxon and Chevron.
(Reporting by Philbert Girinema and Hereward Holland; Writing by Chijioke Ohuocha; Editing by Bate Felix and Bill Berkrot)