Dangote Petroleum Refinery has quietly bought two cargoes of crude oil from the United Arab Emirates — its first-ever purchases from the Middle East as it widens where it gets feedstock amid tight local supplies.
S&P Global Commodity Insights says those two cargoes will be the first sourced by the 700,000-barrels-per-day refinery from any Middle Eastern supplier. That marks a move away from its usual reliance on Nigerian, African and United States crude grades.
S&P says the buys came after Middle East exports resumed following an interim peace deal between the United States and Iran, which helped restore confidence in shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
Built mainly to process Nigeria’s light sweet crude, the refinery has been diversifying as operations ramp up. An agreement with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company was meant to guarantee 13–15 Nigerian cargoes a month paid in naira, cutting foreign exchange exposure. But the supply deal has hit snags because of low crude availability and export terminal problems. CEO David Bird has said those constraints pushed the company to look beyond Nigeria for crude.
Dangote plans to double capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day by the end of 2028 — enough to process roughly 80% of Nigeria’s recent crude output in one day. “We definitely want to heavy up the barrel,” Bird said in April. He added, “We will be in the crude blending game. So you can easily imagine at 1.4 million b/d we could process 30 per cent Middle Eastern grades on each train.”
S&P notes the refinery is broadening its crude mix to become a full merchant refinery; in 2025 about 70% of its imports came from Nigeria and 24% from the United States.
