Today, the leadership of Nigeria’s House of Representatives, headed by Speaker Tajudeen Abbas, visited the Dangote Petroleum Refinery in Lagos State. The $20 billion refinery, located in the Lekki Free Trade Zone, welcomed the lawmakers around 11 am on Saturday. They were greeted by Aliko Dangote, the President of Dangote Group, along with other top executives.

During their visit, the lawmakers toured the refinery, which has a capacity of 650,000 barrels per day. They also discussed the plans to start supplying petrol next month. This visit is the second by federal lawmakers this year, following a visit by the Senate leadership in June, led by Senate President Godswill Akpaio.

This visit comes shortly after Farouk Ahmed, Chief Executive of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Authority, raised concerns about the high sulphur content in the diesel produced by the Dangote refinery, stating it contains about 1,000 parts per million. Ahmed also noted that the refinery is still at the pre-commissioning stage and hasn’t been licensed yet, despite selling diesel and aviation fuel in Nigeria for months.

Ahmed emphasized that Nigeria cannot rely solely on the Dangote refinery for its fuel supply and mentioned that the refinery had requested the regulator to stop issuing import licenses to other fuel marketers, aiming to become the nation’s exclusive fuel supplier.