China helped build a massive refinery in Nigeria — and it’s changing the game.

Despite being a top oil producer, Nigeria lacked refining capacity. Now, the $20B Dangote refinery is exporting fuel, meeting local demand, and reshaping energy flows across Africa.

Nigeria already has four refineries, but they are widely seen to be poorly maintained and only running at 40% of capacity.
As a result, the African country must currently import refined fuel, even though it is a major crude oil producer and exporter.

Running at its full capacity of 650,000 barrels per day, the world’s biggest single-train refinery supplied fuel to many African countries that usually relied on imports through the Strait of Hormuz, from Senegal in the west to Mozambique in the southeast.

Built at a cost of about US$20 billion, Dangote Petroleum Refinery’s eight-year journey from construction to production was made possible by cost-efficient Chinese engineering, procurement and construction contractors, according to Aliko Dangote, the refinery’s founder and chairman as well as Africa’s wealthiest person.

https://www.bbc.com/news/10527308
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3352256/fuelling-continent-how-chinas-engineering-prowess-built-africas-biggest-oil-refinery