Chief Executive Officer of Dangote Refinery, David Bird, has described the facility as a magnificent “continent-building project” that gives him deep personal purpose, underscoring the scale and ambition of what is widely regarded as Africa’s most significant industrial investment.
Speaking during a press conference on Wednesday at the Dangote Refinery, he said, “It’s truly no understatement to say this is a continent building project and that gives me a lot of personal purpose to be part of this magnificent investment. I arrived in August, so I can’t take credit for all of the incredible commissioning and startup.
“I use the phrase ‘I stand on the shoulders of giants’ for all that has been achieved to transform this part of Lagos, part of Nigeria into truly what has the potential to become a worldscale industrial heartland.”
Bird noted that the focus of the refinery has shifted to stabilisation and capacity ramp-up. Despite still increasing output across conversion and downstream units, the refinery delivered more than 50 million litres of products per day in the second half of 2025, occasionally exceeding 52 million litres.
He attributed this performance to the refinery’s unique design and the strategic foresight of Dangote Group founder, Alhaji Aliko Dangote.
He stated, “Now, we’re really in a period of stabilisation. What I’m incredibly proud of in the second half of 2025 whilst we are still ramping up capacity of our conversion units and our downstream units, we were still able to deliver 50 million liters a day, more frankly than 52 million liters on some occasions.
“We’ve done that because Dangote Refinery is not just a traditional refinery. What we’re blessed with is the foresight of Alhaji Aliko Dangote to invest in the infrastructure where we can truly now leverage this site as a complete merchant refining blending trading platform. What do I mean by that? I mean 100% of our feed stock is imported by sea. So, seaborne. We’re not a refinery that sits on the end of a pipeline and just processes one crude. All of our feed stock is sea borne. So that gives us incredible flexibility not only in the crude that we process a whole variety of Nigerian grades but also the opportunity to explore alternative grades but also intermediate feed stock. So we really load up the conversion units.”
Melissa Enoch
Follow us on:
