00:00Rashid Sule's small business keeps Lagos rolling.
00:05He's a roadside vulcanizer, and without people like him, the city would soon grind to a halt.
00:11But without petrol to run his air pump, he can do nothing, and the tyres stay flat.
00:17Fuel shortages have hit him hard.
00:30If you want to buy, you have to pay 1,500 or 1,000 Naira for a litre for the black market.
00:37Rashid, like all Nigerians, had been hoping that the Dangote refinery could bring some relief.
00:43But will its capacity of 650,000 barrels per day be enough to ease the crisis and reduce prices?
00:50Nigeria is Africa's biggest oil producer, but it has long struggled with fuel shortages,
00:56and more recently, rising costs since the removal of fuel subsidies in May 2023.
01:02For Nigerians, that all means long waits at fueling stations and the daily frustration of navigating the fuel crisis.
01:10I'm supposed to be in the office now. I'm not in the office.
01:13So I'll spend hours queuing for fuel.
01:17I just left a fueling station now.
01:19We're just two vehicles to buy fuel, and it finished.
01:23So I have to come and start another queue again.
01:26Until recently, the fuel flowing through this nozzle was exclusively imported from abroad
01:32because Nigeria lacked the capacity to refine its own crude oil.
01:37With the new Dangote refinery in operation, it is hopeful that the country will rely less on expensive imports,
01:44and the price of fuel would reduce.
01:47Energy analysts say there are multiple aspects to the problem,
01:50but at its heart, it comes down to the fact that Nigeria is not pumping enough crude.
01:55It's not enough to feed our local refineries. It's not enough to feed Dangote refinery, for instance,
02:01which is what we are talking about, right?
02:03They still have to import crude, and that is priced in dollars.
02:07So at the end of the day, they need to make, they need to turn out a profit in their business.
02:12The scarcity of crude is just one factor that could throttle the Dangote refinery's market impact,
02:18especially as existing refineries are running at low or no capacity.
02:24Dangote refinery is a good initiative, but other layers, I mean, other refineries,
02:34the Port Harcourt refinery, Gibore refinery, and other modular refineries must work for price to be stabilized.
02:42Licensed importers must be allowed to thrive.
02:46There will be healthy competition and price will fall.
02:49For today, Rashid has found enough fuel to keep his air pump running and the wheels of Lagos rolling.
02:55But the Dangote refinery is just one piece in the puzzle of distribution challenges,
03:00government policy, and market conditions.
03:03It is not yet clear whether it can help solve the fuel crisis
03:07and finally stabilize prices for Nigeria's consumers.
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