Nigerian billionaire businessman, Alhaji Aliko Dangote has revealed that the desire to bring innovation and efficiency to Nigeria’s oil and gas sector is the motive behind his investment in petrochemicals, refinery and gas.
Dangote who was represented at the Nigeria International Petroleum Summit (NIPS) by the Dangote Group Executive Director, Ahmed Mansur, said the company remained passionate about efficiency and innovation in the oil and gas sector through adding value to the hydrocarbon process. He said that on completion, the 650,000 barrels-per-day capacity refinery will be the largest in Africa.
Dangote further disclosed that the refinery project would become the world’s largest single-train refinery on completion and therefore a boost to Nigeria’s economy.
Nairametrics had reported that the Dangote Petroleum Refinery will create $11 billion per annum market for Nigerian crude.
Dangote said that upon completion, the Dangote Refinery will meet 100 per cent daily Nigerian consumption of all refined products and would also have the surplus for export.
He also said the Refinery and petrochemical projects will include the world second largest Urea plant with capacity to produce three million tons per annum; the largest sub-sea pipeline infrastructure in any country in the world (1100 km) to handle 3 billion SCUF of gas per day; world scale gas treatment stations; world-class petrochemical complex; 480MW power plant and 500 KPTA polyethylene plant.
Also, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), had indicated interest to provide a financial facility for the ongoing Dangote Refinery project, to the tune of N75 billion. Governor of the CBN, Godwin Emefiele, disclosed this in Abuja while answering questions from journalists during the just concluded Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting.
While the nature of the financial facility is not exactly clear at the moment, Emefiele did mention that Dangote has already invested about 50 per cent of the $9 billion dollars needed to complete the project. The remaining 50% is expected to be sourced as loans from both local and foreign lenders.