A mega-refinery built in Nigeria by billionaire Aliko Dangote has received its first barrels of crude oil, an "important milestone" in a project that has been plagued by delays and aims to fully meet the country's fuel needs, the company announced on Saturday.

Since Friday, one million barrels from the Agbami offshore oil field in the Niger Delta have been unloaded by ship at the refinery in the Lekki free trade zone, east of the economic capital Lagos.

"This is an important step," said Aliko Dangote, who founded Dangote Petroleum Refinery, in a statement released on Saturday, adding that "the next big step will be to bring our products to the Nigerian market".

Initially scheduled for "late July, early August", oil refining should enable Nigeria to put an end to frequent fuel shortages, but also increase the quality of fuel in circulation.

Nigeria (population 215 million) is one of Africa's biggest oil producers, but imports almost all its fuel due to the failure of its state refineries. And fuel shortages plague the daily lives of its inhabitants.

Launched in 2013, the $18.5 billion-plus industrial project (double the initial cost) is "the largest single-train refinery in the world", according to the Dangote group, and should, at full capacity, have the largest crude refining capacity on the African continent.

The facility is scheduled to refine 350,000 barrels a day initially, rising to 650,000 once fully operational, and to produce diesel, jet fuel, automotive fuel and liquefied petroleum gas.

A further 5 million barrels are scheduled for delivery in the coming weeks. The industrial site has been built next to the new deepwater port of Lekki, which is designed to relieve congestion at the port of Lagos, but also to export some of Dangote's refined oil to other African countries.

According to Mr. Dangote, in the long term, "at least 40% of the refinery's capacity will be available for export, which should generate significant foreign currency earnings for the country".

Le360 Afrique (avec AFP)