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Lessons for Lamu from Dangote’s court battles
Every regulator in East Africa will read the Lagos judgment, because it will be among the first in Africa to say if a local-refining clause gives a refiner the right to exclude imports. Pure protection would create a private monopoly with the blessing of the state.
In May, Dangote Petroleum Refinery returned to court in Lagos. It asked the Federal High Court to strike down petrol import licences that Nigeria's downstream regulator had just granted to the state oil company and six private marketers, allowing 720,000 tonnes of petrol into a country that now has Africa's largest single-train refinery on its own coast.
The dispute is about the meaning of one clause. Section 317(9) of Nigeria's Petroleum Industry Act, 2021 requires the regulator to promote local refining and allows it to license imports only where domestic supply falls short.
