The Dangote petroleum refinery, a prestigious undertaking that is anticipated to spark the change of Nigeria’s energy industry, has been officially inaugurated by President Muhammadu Buhari.
It is the largest oil refinery in Africa and the world’s biggest single-train facility and is located in Ibeju, Lagos, covering a land area of approximately 2,635 hectares.
Presidents of African nations, business titans, and bigwigs flocked to see the $19 billion complex. The facility is expected to revolutionize crude oil refining in Africa.
The historic opening comes ten years after Aliko Dangote, the wealthiest businessman in Africa, unveiled plans for the refinery in September 2013.
The refinery’s output is expected to provide for local consumption as well as make Nigeria an exporter of refined crude.
The integrated refinery and petrochemical project is expected to generate 9,500 direct and 25,000 indirect jobs
The 650,000 barrels per day (BPD) refinery comes with a 900 KTPA Polypropylene Plant.
In June 2021, Mele Kyari, group managing director, NNPC, confirmed that the federal government would acquire a 20 percent equity stake in the Dangote Refinery.
The federal executive council (FEC) later approved the sum of $2.76 billion for the acquisition of a 20 percent minority equity stake in the refinery.
The Refinery is powered by a 435 MW Power Plant and designed for 100% Nigerian Crude with flexibility to process other crudes. it also designed to process large variety of crudes including many of the African Crudes, some of the Middle Eastern Crudes and the US Light Tight Oil.
It incorporates state-of-the-art technology. The refinery’s diesel and gasoline products will conform to Euro V specifications.
The refinery design complies with World Bank, US EPA, European emission norms and Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) emission/effluent norms.
The refinery has 177 tanks of 4.742 billion litres capacity.
During construction, Dangote Group bought 332 cranes to build up equipment installation capacity.
The world’s largest granite quarry was also to supply coarse aggregate, stone column material, stone base, stone dust & material for break water (10 million tonnes per year production capacity).
In a bid to bring over dimensional cargoes close to the site directly, Dangote Group had to developed a port and constructed two quays with a load bearing capacity of 25 tonnes/sq metre.
Aditional two quays were constructed in the port with a capacity to handle up to Panamax vessels to export, two quays to handle liquid cargoes. The port will have 6 quays, including a roll-on/roll-off quay.
It is reported that 900 young engineers in refinery operations were trained abroad. with Mechanical Engineers trained in the GE University in Italy while Process engineers were trained by Honeywell/UOP for six months.
Ifunanya Ikueze is an Engineer, Safety Professional, Writer, Investor, Entrepreneur and Educator.
