LONDON/LAGOS (Reuters) -Nigeria’s Dangote oil refinery has fired some of its workers, according to a copy of a letter from the company seen by Reuters and an official at the PENGASSAN oil union on Friday.
The refinery is Africa’s biggest by far with crude processing capacity of 650,000 barrels per day and has the potential to reshape global fuel trading dynamics by creating a new swing supplier in the Atlantic Basin.
It was not immediately possible to confirm how many workers have lost their jobs or whether the layoffs would affect production. The letter said the dismissals would be by the evening of September 25.
Dangote shut its gasoline unit in late August for repairs likely to take 2-3 months.
The refinery did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
The plant, which began processing crude in January 2024, exported a higher volume of fuel oil in September, according to Kpler. Modern oil refineries typically export higher volumes of fuel oil when they have an outage or maintenance.
(Reporting by Enes Tunagur and Isaac AnyaoguAdditional Reporting by Owolabi TifeEditing by Alex Lawler and David Goodman)
