Africa’s biggest oil refinery, Dangote, was hit by fire on Wednesday, but the Nigerian plant insisted operations were unaffected.
Footage of flames and black smoke billowing from the new $20bn plant near Lagos went viral in Nigeria on Wednesday.
Dangote Group later issued a statement, saying the “minor” fire was extinguished by firefighters.
In the statement, company spokesman Anthony Chiejina said operations at the refinery were not affected in any way.
“There is no cause for alarm as the refinery is operating and there is no recorded injury or body harm to all our staff on duty,” he added.
Chiejina said the blaze broke out in an effluent plant.
The cause and extent of damage is not yet known.
Dangote Group is owned by Africa’s richest man, billionaire Aliko Dangote.
The 650,000-barrel-per-day refinery has been shaking up tanker markets since launching this year.
Analytics company Kpler said the plant is running at 237,000 bpd in June, and this is expected to increase to 250,000 bpd next month.
There are plans to ramp this up to 330,000 bpd later in 2024.
The refinery imported its first crude cargo last December, and over the past three months, imports averaged between 230,000 bpd and 310,000 bpd, mainly consisting of Nigerian grades, supplemented by US barrels.
Much of this has been imported on VLCCs.
In March, clean and dirty cargoes were exported for the first time, with some barrels heading to Europe.
Kpler said volumes reached 290,000 bpd that month.
