According to billionaire industrialist Aliko Dangote, the use of naira to buy fuel will result in a 40% decrease in the high demand for foreign currency.
Dangote made this statement on Tuesday along with the start of petrol production at the Dangote refinery in Lagos.
Speaking on Arise TV, the billionaire 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 tripping.”
He continued by saying that it would be easier to calculate national consumption as loaded trucks would be able to be tracked.
“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 local refineries would be able to purchase crude oil in dollars or naira.
It also stated that as of January 1, 2024, Nigeria’s total reserves of crude oil and condensate had climbed to 37.5 billion barrels, with a life index of 68.01 years.
if operating at full capacity, the Dangote Refinery can process 650,000 barrels of oil per day, of which more over half are converted into petrol.
