“This is the biggest industrial site anywhere in the world from the fertiliser, petrochemical and refinery plants. The Dangote Refinery will produce 650,000 barrels per day of refined petroleum products to meet all the country’s refined petroleum products needs as well as export to other countries.”
The world we lived in the past and the promises made to us and failed by us seems to be fading away as Dangote Group hits us with a bang of the Dangote Refinery taking shape right in Lekki Free Trade Zone, Lagos over a space of land calculated to be exactly 2,200 hectares, somewhere eight times bigger than Victoria Island in Lagos. First phase will be completed at the end of 2017, second phase by the end of 2018 and third phase including the commencement will be in 2019. Dandote himself has produced $7 billion of $14 billion target for the project, in which banks and investors are coming through to fund the project.
The refinery will be the largest in Africa producing 650,000 barrels per day, benching South Africa’s Sapref Refinery which produces 180,000 barrels per day and Cairo’s Mostrood Refinery which produces 142,000 barrels per day.
“This is the biggest industrial site anywhere in the world from the fertiliser, petrochemical and refinery plants. The Dangote Refinery will produce 650,000 barrels per day of refined petroleum products to meet all the country’s refined petroleum products needs as well as export to other countries.” Dangote said.
According to Dangote, the refinery project will directly provide 100,000 employment, revive 11,000 filling Stations and crash the price of petrol product in Nigeria. The project will also help the country save $7.5 billion annually in foreign exchange and a $5 billion earnings annually.
The truth of the matter is that, the NNPC refineries currently operating are producing less than their installed capacity. For instance, the Port Harcourt Refinery with a capacity of 10.500 million metric tonnes per year is producing 20 percent less of its installed capacity and one can say the same or the Kaduna and Warri Refinery.
This means that Nigeria will host the largest refinery in Africa, taking over from the Jamnagar Refinery in Gujarat India, which produces 1,240,000 barrels per day. It is a project that will largely help the economy of the state, foreign exchange rate, employment to mention a few, but the project being owned by a private sector in the country means that the private sector begins to control a lot of things within the country and the conditions to enjoy these benefits becomes uncomfortable.
Dangote Group as a business empire, is out to make its own profit and so far, with its cement and food products, the Group has been on the high side as much as the foreign exchange rate in the past years. How does this not become the same? How can the benefit be for the company as well as the masses and not just all profit for the government of the day and the private sector?
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