Africa losing over $90bn as ECOWAS countries import 70% petrol

African is exporting jobs and importing poverty by refusing to refine its own crude oil, Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, made this known yesterday, cautioning that the continent forfeits over $90 billion yearly to regions with greater refining capacity.

This comes as the Nigeria Midstream Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) said the continent still imports about 69 per cent of gasoline and refines only about 31 per cent locally.

Delivering the keynote address at the West Africa Refined Fuel Conference in Abuja, Dangote said the continent’s reliance on imported refined fuel was not only undermining industrialisation but also entrenching structural poverty.

“Only 15 per cent of African countries have a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) above $90 billion, yet we hand over that much value every year through crude exports. We must stop outsourcing our industrial future,” he said.

Dangote cited the massive technical, commercial and political hurdles encountered while building his refinery in Lagos, adding that despite the scale of the investment, sourcing crude from Nigerian producers proved unexpectedly difficult.

“Rather than selling to us directly, international traders bought Nigerian crude and resold it to us at a premium,” Dangote said while stressing that his refinery still imports crude monthly from the United States (U.S.) and other countries.

According to him, regulatory bottlenecks and prohibitive logistics costs make it more expensive to move crude within the continent than to ship it from as far as India. He also criticised Africa’s fragmented fuel specifications, which he said inhibit regional trade.

“The diesel we refine for Nigeria cannot be sold in Ghana, Togo or Cameroon. This fragmentation only benefits foreign traders,” Dangote lamented.

The industrialist warned that Africa’s domestic refining ambitions were at risk of being crushed by the dumping of ultra-cheap and often toxic fuels, particularly Russian petroleum products blended to substandard levels.

Advertisement

“We must not let dumping destroy our manufacturing base like it did with textiles,” he said. Despite the challenges, Dangote said Nigeria is now a net exporter of cement, urea and petrol.

_{Images are for reference only.Images and contents gathered automatic from google or 3rd party sources.All rights on the images and contents are with their legal original owners.}