The refinery, Africa's largest with a nameplate capacity of 650,000 barrels per day, was built on a peninsula on the outskirts of Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos by one of the continent's richest man Aliko Dangote.
Nigeria has for years relied on expensive imports for nearly all the fuel it consumes but the $20 billion refinery is set to turn it into a net exporter of fuel to other West African countries, in a huge potential shift of power and profit dynamics in the industry.
Dangote declined a request for comment.
The first cargo is 65,000 metric tons of low sulfur straight run fuel oil, which Dangote has awarded to Trafigura and is due to load at the end of February, three of the sources said.
Trafigura declined to comment.
At least one refiner said they had been offered the cargo by Trafigura without elaborating further.
The second tender is for about 60,000 tons of naphtha loading on February 23-29, a tender document seen by Reuters showed. The deadline for submissions of bids closed on Thursday afternoon, said a trader who participated in the tender.
Sources say the refinery last week started preparations to deliver its first fuel cargoes to the domestic market within weeks.
The two fuels on offer are typical products of running light sweet crude through a crude distillation unit, CDU in a refinery without further upgrading capacity. It is expected to take months for upgrading units to be brought online, experts have said.
The refiner began buying crude in December last year and Nigeria's state-owned oil firm NNPC Ltd has been the main supplier.
Dangote has also purchased some U.S. oil and is expected to receive 2 million barrels of U.S. WTI Midland in early March, according to LSEG and Kpler ship tracking.
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