Aliko Dangote has stated that the first cargo of about 6 million barrels of crude oil will be ready for refining at Dangote Refinery by December 2023.
Africa’s richest man, with an estimated net worth of US$10.5 billion by Forbes, disclosed this to Financial times in an interview on Saturday.
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Financial times reported that Dangote said he believe the refinery could reach its capacity of 650,000 barrels a day by the end of 2024.
“We’re starting with 350,000 barrels a day,” Dangote told FT.
If all goes to plan, FT wrote, Aliko Dangote is about to bring online a US$20bn oil refinery outside Lagos that could transform Nigeria’s economy.
Provided that sufficient crude oil can be secured, the refinery could start churning out diesel, kerosene and jet fuel as soon as next month.
The Cable reported earlier in the month that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited is expected to allocate six million barrels of crude oil to Dangote Refinery in December 2023.
During the inauguration of the refinery in May, Dangote stated that production of petroleum products would commence at the end of July 2023. However, the refinery is yet to commence operation.
Dangote said he is confident NNPCL will come through despite rumours of its inability or unwillingness to supply him with the crude his refinery needs.
At full production, the refinery, the world’s largest “single train” facility with just one distillation unit, could save Nigeria billions in foreign exchange currently spent on imported fuel.
It was “shameful”, Dangote said, that Nigeria, a major oil producer for more than 50 years, could not refine its own crude in anything like sufficient quantity.
Speaking on challenges faced by the company,
Dangote conceded there were times when he thought the massive project – long delayed and about $8 billion over budget – might jeopardise his business empire.
“The challenges that we faced, I don’t know whether other people can face these challenges and even survive,” he said. “It’s either we sink or we sail through. And we thank the Almighty that at least we’ve arrived at the destination,” he added.
In the interview, Dangote complained that rivals were carping because they did not understand what it took to run a business that was the country’s biggest private-sector employer and its biggest taxpayer.
“Sometimes when people talk about us, Dangote, it’s like the government is holding everybody down and allowing us alone to fly,” he stated.
He did not want to discuss in detail a tussle over the supply of crude with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), which owns 20 per cent of the refinery after a $2.76 billion equity purchase in 2021.
“Let’s not have the blame game here,” he said of NNPC’s reported difficulties in meeting the refinery’s requirements. “We have resolved all the issues of supply,” he stressed.
Dangote rejected suggestions NNPC was playing hardball to negotiate a bigger share of the refinery, which he said would generate revenue of $25 billion a year at full capacity. “I don’t think NNPC needs to buy more shares. I think they’re okay with what we’ve given them,” he added.
The refinery would eventually be floated as a separate company, he said, initially on the Lagos stock exchange.
To build the massive project on 2,500 hectares of swampland, Dangote had to construct his own port and road to take delivery of heavy equipment, establish his own trucking company to move it and his own industrial welding facility to put it together.
He said he had laid enough cable to stretch twice around the globe and had moved 65 million tonnes of sand. “You will not see this kind of project in Nigeria in the next 20 years,” he said.
No outside contractor had been willing to take on Nigerian risk, he said, so he had to design and build the whole thing in-house.
“We didn’t cut costs. We didn’t cut corners,” he said. “We didn’t do it for people to clap for us. We did it for posterity,” Africa’s richest man pointed out.
He avoided being be drawn into a discussion on his fight with BUA Chief, Abdulsamad Rabiu or his relationship with the president. But he said nothing should distract from the refinery — a “national project” that was “bigger than Dangote”.
Dangote was adamant that everything was ready, despite the years of promises. “The refinery is done, the baby can come out at any time,” he said.
Nigeria produces about 1.4 million barrels of oil a day, well short of its Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) quota of 1.74 million barrels, with much pre-sold in forward contracts.
Nnamdi Maduakor is a Writer, Investor and Entrepreneur
