A few months ago a prayer was held in Kano, a very religious city in northern Nigeria.
It was organised to pray for the success of a massive new Nigerian oil refinery, which will start producing petrol for the first time next month.
Praying for such an industrial facility may seem illogical, but many Nigerians hope that the Dangote Petroleum Refinery will lead to a major increase in the availability of petrol and thus a drop in prices.
The $19 billion (£15 billion) refinery is located on the coast near Nigeria’s commercial hub of Lagos in the south of the country and is the size of almost 4,000 football pitches.
Construction began in 2016 and production of diesel and jet fuel began in January of this year. Petrol will now follow.
The hope is that the facility will ensure that Nigeria is no longer dependent on imports of these fuels.
Although Nigeria is Africa’s largest crude oil producer and the 15th largest in the world, none of the existing government refineries are operational.
Dangote’s private refinery was built by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote.
The 67-year-old, born in Kano, has a fortune of $12.6 billion (£9.7 billion), according to Forbes magazine.
Through his company, Dangote Group, he made a fortune in the cement and sugar sectors before facing what many call his biggest challenge yet with the opening of the refinery.
The recent prayer session in Kano was organised by shop owner Lado Danladi and held at a nearby mosque. He was accompanied by some of his neighbouring shopkeepers.
“I have a small phone charging shop and buy $5 petrol every day for my small generator because there is no stable electricity,” says Mr Danladi. “But since I heard about the Dangote refinery, I have been praying for its success.
“I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve lost in the past trying to get fuel during a shortage, so hopefully the refinery will end the suffering and help small businesses like mine get cheap and easy fuel.”
Mr Danladi’s fellow shopkeepers, a meat seller and a drinks vendor, all have similar complaints about buying ‘expensive’ fuel to power generators.
For decades, Nigerians enjoyed subsidized gasoline prices. But last year, incoming President Bola Tinubu stopped the subsidies, saying they were no longer affordable. This led to prices increasing by as much as four times.
When gasoline shortages led to lines at gas stations this spring and early summer, the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Company warned people to panic buying.
The situation is not helped by Nigeria’s corruption problem. According to the closely monitored global corruption index of the non-governmental organization Transparency International, Nigeria ranks first 145th out of 180 countries.
The higher the ranking, the more corrupt a country is perceived to be.
Once fully operational, the Dangote refinery will have a capacity of 650,000 barrels of fuel per day.
Devakumar Edwin, vice-president of Dangote Group, says the refinery will produce 500,000 barrels by the end of August, which will exceed the country’s consumption of 480,000 barrels per day. The aim is to export the surplus.
Abubakar Maigandi, chairman of Nigeria’s Independent Petroleum Traders and a 30-year veteran of the oil sector, says the Dangote refinery will solve their long-standing logistics problem.
“I foresee the Dangote refinery solving the logistical problem we currently face when trying to get imported petrol to consumers because it is refined here in Nigeria,” he said.
“This also means cheaper petrol for Nigerians as import charges have been eliminated. I also hope that Dangote refinery will deal directly with us without middlemen to complicate matters.”
According to Nigerian public affairs analyst Sani Bala, the Dangote refinery needs to “bring down the price of petrol” for its impact to be felt across the country.
He adds: “I also personally think that we should not rely solely on the Dangote refinery for our energy needs. What if something happens to it? We are going back to the drawing board. There should be another working refinery.
“As an environmentalist, I am also concerned about the level of emissions we are going to see from this massive oil refinery, not to mention the impact on the communities nearby.”
Last year a dialogue was held on the impact of the facility on the local population.
Youth leader Arepo Azeez says there are numerous problems, such as “vibrations” from the refinery. “We are also concerned about possible accidental discharges of crude oil into the water, incidents of mishandling of equipment, which will result in leakage of crude oil and even refined products when the refinery comes into full operation.”
But Mr Lado in Kano is especially looking forward to the prospect of much cheaper petrol.
Additional reporting by Nkechi Ogbonna.
