By By Elizabeth Ugbo
Billionaire businessman Femi Otedola has predicted that the Nigerian naira could trade below ₦1,000 to the US dollar before the end of 2026, following the Dangote Petroleum Refinery reaching its full production capacity of 650,000 barrels per day. Otedola made the statement on Thursday on X, congratulating his friend and fellow businessman Aliko Dangote on the milestone, which he said would transform Nigeria’s energy sector and ease pressure on the foreign exchange market.
Otedola noted that the refinery’s capacity to supply up to 75 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit daily would reduce Nigeria’s long-standing reliance on imported fuel, potentially strengthening the naira significantly. “With domestic refining now firmly underway, trading below ₦1,000 per dollar before year-end is increasingly within reach,” he added.
He further revealed that Dangote is embarking on a $12 billion expansion to boost refining capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day, alongside plans to produce 2.4 million tonnes of polypropylene and 400,000 metric tonnes of linear alkyl benzene, used in detergents. Otedola said work on the expansion had already commenced in earnest.
The development comes as the Central Bank of Nigeria continues efforts to stabilize the country’s volatile foreign exchange market, introducing measures to improve liquidity and reduce the gap between official and parallel exchange rates. Currently, the naira trades around ₦1,354 per dollar officially and ₦1,430–₦1,440 on the parallel market, its strongest levels in over two years.
