Key Highlights
- The Dangote Refinery is set for inauguration on May 22, by President Buhari according to a source at the refinery.
- The refinery has been completed with pre-inauguration tests currently ongoing.
- The company had earlier refuted reports that the refinery was among the list of projects scheduled for inauguration by Buhari when he visited Lagos in January.
There are reports that the world’s largest single-train refinery, the Dangote Refinery, is set for inauguration by President Muhammadu Buhari on May 22, 2023.
This will come as a huge relief to Nigerians and stakeholders who have been looking forward to the commencement of operations of the refinery to help complement the efforts of the Federal Government to make Nigeria self-sufficient in local refining of petroleum products and save the scarce foreign exchange used for their importation.
According to Thisday, this was confirmed by a source at the refinery on Saturday night, noting that the refinery has been completed with pre-inauguration tests currently ongoing.
The source disclosed that President Buhari would inaugurate the plant on Monday, May 22, 2023.
Refinery to be commissioned before President Buhari leaves office
Dangote Industries Limited had earlier hinted that its refinery in Lagos would be inaugurated before the end of the tenure of President Buhari on May 29, 2023.
This was confirmed by the company when it had through a statement refuted reports that the refinery was among the list of projects scheduled for inauguration by Buhari when he visited Lagos in January.
Dangote Industries in the statement said,
- ‘’Our attention has been drawn to some misleading reports regarding the commissioning of our Dangote Refinery during the present working visit of President Muhammadu Buhari GCFR to Lagos State.
- ‘’We want to state categorically that our 650,000 barrels per day (bpd) Refinery project was never part of the President’s programme on projects to be commissioned.
- ‘’For the record, the projects slated for commissioning in Lagos State by President Muhammadu Buhari GCFR include Lekki Deep Sea Port; 32-Metric Tonnes Lagos Rice Mill, Imota; 18.75km Eleko to Epe T Junction Express road; John Randle Centre for Yoruba Culture and History, Onikan, Blue Line Rail (Phase 1) commissioning (Marina to Mile 2); Groundbreaking for the Blue Line Rail Phase 2 (Mile 2 to Okokomaiko), and MRS Lubricant, a private project in Apapa.
- ‘’However, our Refinery will be commissioned before President Muhammadu Buhari GCFR formally leaves office in May 2023, and the public will be duly informed and invited to the epic event.’’
Several delays
The Dangote Refinery project has suffered several setbacks in terms of completion date especially due to some issues ranging from funding challenges, problems importing steel and other equipment, the coronavirus pandemic, which resulted in economic turmoil exposed many vulnerabilities in supply chains leading to the delay in transport of some equipment to the refinery among others.
The refinery was initially scheduled for completion in 2019 but had to be shifted several times.
The President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, had in January 2022, revealed that its refinery subsidiary would commence processing of crude oil in the third quarter of 2022.
Despite his comments at that time, sources familiar with the status of the project expressed doubt the refinery would be ready to start producing fuel, diesel and other by crude oil by-products used by Nigerians at that stated time.
What you should know
- Dangote refinery is a 650,000 barrels per day (BPD) integrated refinery and petrochemical project in the Lekki Free Zone in Lagos, Nigeria. It is owned by the Dangote Group and is expected to be Africa’s biggest oil refinery and the world’s biggest single-train facility, upon completion.
- The estimated $19 billion facility is an integrated refinery and petrochemical project which will meet 100% of Nigeria’s refined petroleum product requirement and even have a surplus for export when completed.
- Due to the large capacity of the refinery, its pipeline infrastructure is the largest anywhere in the world, with 1,100 kilometres to handle 3 billion Standard Cubic Feet per day (Scf/d) of gas.
- There is general optimism among stakeholders that the much-expected Dangote refinery will change the narratives in the nation’s downstream sector this year as it is expected to be one of the key drivers of growth that would impact positively on the downstream sector of the Nigerian economy in 2022.
- On completion, the refinery is expected to meet 100 percent of the Nigerian requirement of all refined products and also have a surplus of each of these products for export.
