Six vessels carrying about 1.7 million barrels of jet fuel from the Dangote refinery arrived at U.S. ports this month, data from ship-tracking service Kpler showed.
Another vessel, Hafnia Andromeda, is set to arrive at the Everglades terminal on March 29 with a load of about 348,000 barrels of jet fuel, the data showed.
U.S. jet fuel imports are set to hit a two-year high in March after the refinery pushed barrels to North America.
Total U.S. jet fuel imports so far in March stood at around 226,000 bpd, the most since February 2023, the data showed.
The development comes amid controversies surrounding the sale and availability of crude oil to the refinery, and Premium Motor Spirit or petrol supply to the Nigerian market.
Reports emerged recently of the Federal Government’s decision to cancel the naira-for-crude deal with the refinery, a development that has since created panic in the hearts of marketers and consumers alike.
The 650, 000 barrels per day refinery has also suspended selling petrol in naira to marketers.
It lamented that there was a mismatch between its sales proceeds and its crude oil purchase obligations, which it said are currently denominated in US dollars.
“Dear valued customers, we wish to inform you that the Dangote Petroleum Refinery has temporarily halted the sale of petroleum products in naira. This decision is necessary to avoid a mismatch between our sales proceeds and our crude oil purchase obligations, which are currently denominated in US dollars.
“To date, our sales of petroleum products in naira have exceeded the value of naira-denominated crude we have received. As a result, we must temporarily adjust our sales currency to align with our crude procurement currency,” the firm announced.
Immediately after the announcement, the cost of loading petrol at private depots in Lagos jumped to about N900/litre. It was less than N850/litre before the announcement.
The Dangote refinery started production last January after years of construction delays, and ramped up to about 85% of capacity in early February, allowing it to sell more fuel to international markets.
Dangote is unlikely to be a regular jet fuel supplier to the U.S., but a maintenance-related shutdown of the Phillips 66 Bayway refinery in New Jersey helped open a rare arbitrage opportunity for flows from Nigeria to the U.S., Sparta Commodities analyst James Noel-Beswick said in a report sent to Reuters.
Column charts displaying monthly US imports of jet fuel by origin country, show imports in March are set to hit their highest since February 2023
The window is likely to close soon or shrink significantly due to elevated U.S. inventories of aviation fuel, Noel-Beswick added.
Demand to lease storage tanks for jet fuel in Houston and New York Harbor in April is averaging around 700,000 barrels on storage broker TankTiger’s platform, five to six times the average monthly demand, TankTiger Chief Operating Officer Steven Barsamian said.
The surge in demand, partly due to the influx of supply from Nigeria, is likely to lower jet fuel prices in the U.S. ahead of peak summer travel season, Barsamian said.
U.S. jet fuel stocks ended February at 45.2 million barrels, the highest for the month since 1999, data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed.
U.S. refiners’ yield of jet fuel hit a record last year, reflecting stronger demand relative to other transportation fuels, the EIA said on Monday. The agency expects U.S. jet fuel consumption to touch a record in 2026.
