Nigeria's Dangote refinery is building eight additional tanks with a total capacity of one billion liters for imported crude oil amid supply problems, Dangote Industries' vice president for oil and gas Devakumar Edwin told The Africa Report, a magazine for African politics and business.
"Importing crude from other countries instead of buying locally means that our crude stockpiles will have to be higher. So, we have started building eight additional crude tanks to hold a billion liters [around 6.3 million barrels], over and above our original storage capacity," he explained.
Four of the tanks are almost completed, Edwin added.
According to the vice president, the storage expansion is driven by the unreliability of local crude oil supplies from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company, forcing the refinery to rely more on imports.
Last November, the Nigerian refinery reportedly began fuel exports to West African countries, and in December, the Dangote refinery exported the first batch of petrol to Cameroon, with announced plans to expand exports to more African countries, including South Africa, Angola and Namibia.