Dangote Refinery Orders 2 Crude Oil Cargoes From UAE

Dangote Refinery has ordered two cargoes of United Arab Emirates (UAE) crude, capitalising on returning oil supplies from the Middle East Gulf, according to a company source involved in the plant’s operations.

The incoming tankers will be the first sourced by Dangote from any Middle Eastern supplier and will mark a pivot from the African and US grades favored by the refinery, according to reports.

The deals follow an exodus of tankers from the Gulf after the US and Iran struck an interim peace agreement guaranteeing safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, returning a flood of Middle Eastern supply to the global market.

The 700,000 barrels a day (b/d) Dangote refinery was designed to process the light sweet crude native to Nigeria, but the company has increasingly sought to diversify its crude sources as the operation has scaled.

In interviews earlier this year with Platts, part of S&P Global Energy, company founder Aliko Dangote and refinery Chief Executive Officer (CEO)  David Bird both shared ambitions for the refinery to incorporate heavier, typically cheaper crudes into its feedstock diet.

The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, which produces most of the UAE’s crude, declined to comment. Despite the effective closure to the Strait of Hormuz, the country has continued to export limited volumes of its crude from inside the Gulf throughout the conflict, as well as from the nearby port of Fujairah.

Its main export grades are the light sour Murban, Das Blend and Umm Lulu, with sulfur content of 0.7 per cent-1.14 per cent, as well as the medium sour Upper Zakum.

Since the peace agreement, prices have dropped dramatically, taking value of UAE’s flagship Murban grade to $66.40/b on June 26, almost $6/b below prewar levels, according to Platts assessments.

In 2025, Dangote imported 70 per cent  of its crude from Nigeria, and 24 per cent  from the US, according to S&P Global Commodities at Sea data.

Bird, who joined the company in 2025 after two years of running Oman’s Duqm refinery, has emphasized plans to develop Dangote into a fully merchant refining model, and would like to more than triple the number of crudes it can process from around 40 today.

In 2026, the refinery has already imported cargoes of Angola’s Cabinda and Saxi Batuque crudes, Ghana’s Jubilee crude and, for the first time, Libyan and Guyanese supplies, all of the light sweet or medium sweet variety, CAS data shows.