DANGOTE Refinery is a modern day wonder. The complex, sitting on 2,635 hectares of land, is a product of vision, technology, innovation, grit and guts.
On completion, the 650,000 barrels-per-day world’s largest single refinery located in Ibeju Lekki area of Lagos State will produce 50 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) and 17 million litres of diesel daily.
It will also produce 4.6 metric tonnes (MT) of kerosene, four Mt of aviation fuel as well as 0.69 Mt of polypropylene, 0.24 Mt of propane, 32,000t of sulphur and 0.5 Mt of carbon black every year.
Consequently, the completion of the complex will mark the end of Nigeria’s dependence on imported petroleum products even as the country begins to earn revenue from exported petroleum products.
The complexity of the engineering architecture of the complex is stunning. The grandeur of the project is overwhelming and the audacity of the vision behind it wowing.
It is absolutely impossible for a visitor to the complex not to be flabbergasted. And so it was for Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information and Culture when he toured the complex with his team penultimate Sunday.
The Minister was so astounded by what he saw that he declared: “Dangote is leading Nigeria’s industrial revolution.”
But just as Minister Mohammed was dazed by the Dangote Refinery wonder, so were those who had visited the site before him. Dr Akinwumi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), could not believe his eyes when he was conducted round the facility early in the year. Adesina, commenting on his experience, wrote, “I was very impressed with Dangote’s refinery and petrochemical industrial zone, a $16 billion investment, the largest single-train refinery in the world.
It shows Africa’s power to industrialise. A game-changer for Nigeria and Africa. Well done Aliko Dangote! I am proud of you.”
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Not done, he added, “Dangote Refinery and Petrochemical Industrial Zone employs 38,000 people: 11,000 expatriates and 27,000 Nigerians. The impact of industrialisation is massive. It delivers quality jobs for the youth. Let’s do more to drive industrialisation in Africa!”
A former president of Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mr Babatunde Ruwase, could also not hide his astonishment when he visited the refinery.
Speaking after touring the complex, Ruwase said, “Dangote is doing so much to positively impact the lives of Nigerians.”
The former LCCI president added that when completed, the refinery would have far-reaching positive effects on Nigerians and the economy.
Continuing with his speech later, the Information and Culture Minister traced the success of the Dangote Refinery to the economic policies of the Buhari administration.
He said, “The coming into being of such huge industrial complex as the Dangote Fertiliser Company and the Refinery were made possible by the enabling environment provided by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.”
Speaking on the benefits of the Dangote Complex to the economy, Mohammed said, “Based on what we have seen and heard here today with regards to the 650,000 barrels per day Dangote Refinery, officially known as The Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemical Plant, would be a game changer once it comes on stream in terms of employment generation, huge value addition that it will contribute to the increase in GDP, conservation of foreign exchange as there will be no more importation of petroleum products, generation of foreign exchange through export of finished products, availability of petroleum products thus ending petrol queues and attract foreign capital investments.”
He added that with the coming on stream of the Dangote Fertiliser Plant, Nigeria is now self-sufficient in the production of urea.
“In fact, Nigeria is now the leading producer of urea in Africa. The Dangote Fertiliser plant is already exporting to the US, India, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. We were fortunate to witness a ship being loaded with urea for export to Argentina.”
In his response, Mr Devakumar Edwin, Group Executive Director, Strategy, Capital Projects and Portfolio Development, Dangote Industries Ltd, who received the minister on behalf of the company, expressed delight on the minister’s visit.
He also assured that the refinery would be commissioned before the year completes its turn. Though not yet in its full glory, Dangote Refinery has become a Mecca of some sort.
It is the place to go for inspiration, excitement and bewilderment.
The complex never fails to leave visitors wondering how a company was able to put together what a country failed to do.
But the Dangote Refinery journey, which started in 2012, has neither been glitch-less nor hitch-free as there were a number of hurdles the company had to scale along the way. One of the major challenges encountered by the Group was the inability of the Nigerian ports to handle consignments for mega projects like the refinery.
The complex, according to Edwin, is a huge project that made use of about a million tonnes of cement, half a million tonnes of steel, 2000 kilometres of pipeline, 7000 kilometres of electrical cables, half a million cubic metres of concrete and about 1,100 kilometres of subsea gas pipeline.
So, Dangote Group had to bring in over 52,000t of components, including a 2000t crude column and a 3000t regenerator, more than the Nigerian ports were designed to handle. According to Alhaji Dangote in an interview, the Dangote Group had to build a new jetty to handle the delivery of steel and other heavy equipment needed to complete the project.
Although this slowed down the project and was partly responsible for the shift in the originally envisioned completion date, it has turned out to be a blessing for both the company as well as the country.
As explained by Edwin, the purpose-built jetty would allow ships loading crude oil to the refinery to berth and discharge for production. He added that petroleum products from the refinery such as; petrol, kerosene, diesel and aviation fuel, would also be loaded in ships at the jetty for distribution to Warri, Port-Harcourt, Calabar as well as other states in the southern part of the country.
This would reduce the volume of petroleum products to be trucked from the refinery. He also stated that the refinery has facilities for dispatch by roads.
According to him, the refinery has a total tanker loading facility of 2,900 for dispatch by road to other areas, as well as 20 crude storage tanks, each with a capacity of 120 million litres, totalling 2.4 billion litres storage capacity. Another militating issue was the environment in which the refinery is built.
The area, being a marshland, had to be reinforced. The Group had to embark on series of piling and soil stabilization to get it to the state that would support the enormity of activities the refinery would engage in.
Then, the company had to construct 138 kilometres of roads.
Cognizant of the fact that such a huge facility could not be powered by diesel generators and given the abysmal state of electricity service in the country, Dangote Group resolved to generate its own electricity.
It therefore built a 400MW power plant that is able to keep the engines running all year round.
So, given all the issues around building the refinery, why did Aliko Dangote, already reeling in billions of dollars, choose to walk where angels feared to tread?
Why did he go through the trouble of building a jetty, constructing roads and building a power plant just to get the refinery off the ground? Was all that about making more money?
Dangote’s close friend, Femi Otedola, attempted an answer to the poser during the inauguration of the Dangote Fertilizer Plant by President Muhammadu Buhari in March this year. According to Otedola, he and Dangote had in 2007 “formed a consortium called Blue Star, to acquire the Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries which, for whatever reasons, was scuttled; the takeover was scuttled and Aliko said he was going to build his refinery.
“My take is, God has to use someone to do things like this. I’m not God chosen today but Aliko has done it with the special grace of God. This project will be a game changer for Nigeria. This project gives me hope that Nigeria is on the path to achieve greatness, once we sort out our little, little issues- security, etc.”
But Dangote himself, in a 2013 interview with the BBC World Service, said his interest in building the refinery was fuelled by his desire to see a more prosperous Nigeria.
He said on the completion of both the refinery and the fertiliser plant, “At least for the first time in our lifetime, we’ll see Nigeria exporting petroleum products. We’ll also see Nigeria for the first time exporting fertiliser rather than using hard-earned foreign exchange to import fertiliser.”
The Dangote dream is already 50 per cent actualized with the completion of the fertiliser plant and the commencement of the exportation of urea to several countries. When the other part is complete by the end of the year, what will the next big move of Africa’s richest and leading industrialist be? The world waits to see.