The Dangote Petroleum Refinery has begun night-time loading as it steps up efforts to maintain a daily supply of over 50 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) nationwide, marking a transition to full 24-hour operations at Africa’s largest refinery.

This follows the ongoing production ramp-up and logistics optimisation aimed at strengthening fuel security and dispelling speculation about maintenance or supply disruptions.

Initially designed for daytime loading, the refinery has extended evacuation into night hours to ensure uninterrupted offtake in line with rising output.

Speaking at a press briefing at the refinery on Wednesday, Managing Director David Bird said the shift to round-the-clock loading was necessary to meet growing market demand and improve turnaround time for product evacuation.

He noted that the refinery is now achieving the 50 million litres daily petrol target in both production and evacuation.

“What I’m incredibly proud of is that, in the second half of 2025, while we were still ramping up capacity of our conversion units and downstream units, we were still able to deliver 50 million litres a day, more frankly than 52 million litres on some occasions,” Bird said.

“We’re already doing nighttime loading. So it’s a 24-hour operation. We have celebrated over 50 million litres of offtake as well, which means over a thousand trucks progressing through the gate and through the gantry. Really learning and continuously improving our logistics and our turnaround time of getting those trucks through.”

Bird emphasised that sustaining high output depends not only on production capacity but also on efficient offtake.

“It’s volatile. We see a dip on weekends and so forth. It all depends on demand and available stocks; if not, we can export. But for me, the primary objective is to demonstrate that we can continue to produce over 50 million litres a day and then see where true market demand in Nigeria lies,” he noted.

He added, “Having a lower price and an abundance of supplies will stimulate demand, which is a good thing. That will continue to stimulate economic activity by having stable, affordable, clean fuels available. I do expect the demand to increase as a result of this stability and abundance of our product.”

Bird also highlighted the refinery’s operational flexibility, noting that it can sustain output even during planned maintenance periods.
“We have continued to deliver 50 million litres a day. We have built this flexibility into our system so that individual units can be taken out for maintenance and still meet finished product demand,” he said.

The MD said the Dangote Refinery is a highly adaptable merchant facility, capable of producing petrol through crude processing, intermediate feedstocks, and blending components.

“This is not just a single crude processing plant. It is a very flexible, resilient production process where we can make our finished product from crude, from intermediates through our conversion and treatment units, or by bringing in blending components,” Bird said.

He added that this flexibility enables the refinery to consistently supply the Nigerian market while retaining its export capacity, a key requirement for operating at a global merchant refining scale.

“We have the requirement to be able to always export our finished product. By definition, that means we have to make world-quality fuels and ensure that we can land our product competitively anywhere in the world. We must make sure our production is compliant with Euro-5 gasoline and diesel,” he said.