Business tycoon Aliko Dangote sets up Africa’s largest petroleum refinery
Top business tycoon, Alhaji Aliko Dangote has inaugurated Africa’s largest refinery, the Dangote Petroleum Refinery worth $19 billion which is set to revolutionize crude oil refining in Africa. The first product is slated to be on the market by July 2023.
The refinery was inaugurated by outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari on May 22, 2023, in Lagos Nigeria, and saw the attendance of 5 African presidents notably, President Gnassingbé Eyadéma of Togo, President Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana, President Macky Sall of Senegal, President Mohamed Bazoum of Niger Republic, President Mahamat Déby of Chad and other bigwigs present.
Reports reveal the inauguration comes a decade after the business tycoon had announced plans for the refinery in September 2013, when he had secured about $3.3 billion in financing for the project.
President Buhari during the inauguration stated that the said facility can process 650,000 barrels a day of crude which would enable Nigeria to achieve self-sufficiency in refined products, and will even have a surplus for export.
“This clearly makes this event a notable milestone for our economy and a game-changer for the downstream petroleum products market, not only in Nigeria but the entire African continent,” the president said, “courtesy the Cable News.
Buhari, reiterating the significance of the project, said Nigeria’s economy has been stressed for many decades by efficiencies in economic infrastructure and over a decade of insurgency.
He says the situation was also severely impacted due to several external crises including the global financial crisis, the collapse of oil prices, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Russia-Ukraine war.
The Dangote Petroleum Refinery, with a capacity to process 650,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd), which sits on 2,635 hectares of land in the Dangote Industries Free Zone in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, is said to employ over 100,000 persons.
It is expected that the new refinery would meet 100 percent of the Nigerian requirement of all refined products (gasoline, 53 million liters per day; diesel, 34 million liters per day; kerosene, 10 million liters per day, and aviation jet, (2 million liters per day), and also have a surplus of each of these products for export.
