The Ghana National Petroleum Authority (NPA) says it is considering buying petroleum products from the Dangote Petroleum Refinery once the facility is operating at full capacity.

According to Reuters, Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, chairman of NPA, Ghana, spoke on Monday at the OTL Africa Downstream Oil Conference in Lagos.

On September 3, Dangote refinery officially announced the commencement of refining crude oil.

However, the 650,000 barrel per day (bpd) capacity refinery began operations in January with the production of diesel and aviation fuel.

Abdul-Hamid said patronising Dangote refinery will help the country cut more expensive exports from Europe which cost the country about $400 million monthly.

“If the refinery reaches 650,000 bpd a day capacity, all that volume cannot be consumed by Nigeria alone, so instead of us importing as we do right now from Rotterdam, it will be much easier for us to import from Nigeria and I believe that will bring down our prices,” Hamid said.

He said importing from Nigeria rather than Europe would reduce the prices of other goods and services by removing freight costs.

Hamid also said African countries would agree on a common currency that should dampen demand for dollars.

The Association of Oil Marketing Companies (AOMCs) in Ghana had on September 11, projected a marginal reduction in petrol and diesel prices starting from September 16 — if the cedi remains stable against the dollar.

Owned by Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, the refinery is expected to operate at near full capacity at the end of the year.