NIGERIA’S chronic headache in the supply of petrol may be cured soon as the President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote promised that the newly commissioned Dangote refinery will supply the product to the local market from August.
Dangote, at the official commissioning of the 650,000 barrels per day facility in Lagos on Monday, said a whopping $18.5 billion has been invested in the project by his company with a desire to support and contribute its quota to the Federal Government’s sustained effort to transform Nigeria’s economy.
Dangote said the investment would also reposition Nigeria as the leading nation in Africa and a respected member among emerging economies in the world even as he stressed the refinery’s role in fulfilling the group’s corporate vision of promoting self-sufficiency and global competitiveness.
“We have built a refinery with a capacity to process 650,000 barrels per day (plus 900,000 tonnes of polypropylene) in a single train – which is the largest in the world. We have selected the best plants and equipment and the latest technologies from across the world.
“Our products slate is designed to meet the highest quality standards and high-value products including Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), Automotive Gas Oil (Diesel), Aviation Turbine Kerosine (ATK); all of Euro V Standards that will enable us not only meet our country’s demand but also to become a key player in the African and global market.
“Our coastal location and offshore loading and offloading (SPM) facilities with a capacity to receive all our crude oil supplies and evacuate up to 75 per cent of our liquid products give us direct access to the rest of Africa and the global market for exports. In addition, 80 per cent of our production can be discharged through trucks nationwide,” he disclosed.
Dangote added that apart from ensuring a steady supply of high-quality products for the transportation sector, the refinery will provide essential raw materials to a wide range of manufacturing sectors, including plastics, pharmaceuticals, food and beverages, packaging, construction, and more.
He said the refinery’s operation and related businesses would generate a substantial number of job opportunities, while the downstream supply and distribution of its products would significantly contribute to the absorption of labor, potentially benefiting hundreds of thousands of individuals.
“This commissioning ceremony is just the beginning of a great journey, a milestone in a new and exciting trajectory for the Downstream sector of Nigeria’s Oil and Gas Industry. It is our firm commitment that we will replicate in this sector, what we have achieved in the cement and fertilizer markets, where Nigeria transited from being the largest importer of these products to a net exporter.
“Beyond today’s ceremony, our first goal is to ramp up production of the various products to ensure that within this year, we are able to fully satisfy our nation’s demand for high quality products to enable us eliminate the tragedy of import dependency and stop, once and for all, the dumping in our market of toxic sub-standard petroleum products” Dangote said.
He added that beyond this, the group will ensure that the plants are run at the highest capacity utilization and highest efficiency to enable us to export competitively to other markets, especially in the ECOWAS and the wider Africa Region in which 53 Countries out of 55 are dependent on imports to meet their petroleum products demand.
