Aliko Dangote, billionaire businessman has announced that the introduction of the naira-for-crude policy will lead to a 40% reduction in foreign exchange demand. He made this statement on Tuesday as he officially launched the production of petrol at the Dangote refinery located in Lagos.
Dangote, speaking on Arise TV, said, “I will like to salute the people of Nigeria and the government of President Bola Tinubu for creating the environment for us to thrive and also achieve this monumental of giving energy to our people for growth, and prosperity.
“I want to thank President Bola Tinubu for creating this idea of Naira for crude and Naira for the product. Doing that will give a lot of stability to the Naira and remove 40 per cent of the demand for dollars. That’s not just it, there is a lot of round t
Dangote emphasized that it would enable the tracking of loaded trucks, thereby facilitating an easier calculation of national fuel consumption.
“Now that we have this refinery working, it will show the true consumption of Nigeria. We can track each loaded truck and we will try as much as possible to track the loaded ships. Trucks, we can tell you where they are and for some of the products we have, we can tell you the consumption,”he said.
In April, the Federal Government announced that indigenous refineries now have the option to purchase crude oil in either naira or dollars. Additionally, it revealed that Nigeria’s total crude oil and condensate reserves had increased to 37.5 billion barrels as of January 1, 2024, with a life index of 68.01 years.
When operating at full capacity, the Dangote Refinery, is capable of processing 650,000 barrels of oil per day, converting over half of that into petrol.
This article was written by Tamaraebiju Jide, a student at Elizade University
