Dangote refinery and petrochemical complex ••• A Behemoth roars into life

At a time that Nigerians are convinced beyond reasonable that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government would perform no miracle, nor would it keep all the promises it made to solve the litany of challenges in the country's petroleum sector, nothing could be more soothing than the news of the inauguration of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery, in the Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, tomorrow, by the outgoing president.

To be ready for commissioning, man and machine over the past six years or thereabouts, put in over 60, 000 hours of work at the site since construction work on the facility commenced in 2016, as over 126 heavy-duty trucks daily, ran across a massive land area, which is about seven times the size of Victoria Island. This is aside from the 750 heavy-duty equipment that were stationed in what constituted one of the biggest construction projects in any part of the world. The initial estimate of the project was put at between $12 billion and $14 billion, but after years of delays and shifts in the inauguration timetable, the cost of Africa's biggest oil refinery and the world's biggest single-train facility cost grew to $19 billion. "Efforts by the Federal Government to make Nigeria self-sufficient in local refining of crude oil to save the scarce foreign exchange used in the importation of petroleum products have received a boost as the 650,000 barrels per day Dangote Refinery, the world's largest single-train refinery, is set for inauguration on May 22nd, 2023, by President Muhammadu Buhari," presidential spokesperson, Bashir Ahmad tweeted on his Twitter handle, @BashirAhmaad. Ahead of the inauguration, the Dangote Group in a Facts Sheet obtained by The Guardian gave details of the facility, as well as whetted the appetite of stakeholders as it reveal tiny, but very important details about the facility.

Furthermore, the refinery design complies with World Bank, US EPA, European emission norms, and Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) emission/ effluent norms, even as diesel and gasoline products from the refinery will conform to Euro V specifications. Besides the state-of-the-art technology employed in its construction, the facility is designed to process a large variety of crudes including many of the African crudes, some of the Middle Eastern crudes, and the US Light Tight Oil. To get the massive facility to fruition, a whopping 65 million cubic metres of sand were dredged at the cost of approximately €300 million, using the world's largest, second largest, and tenth largest dredgers to elevate the height by 1.5 metres, to insure against any potential impact of the increase in mean sea level due to global warming. Part of this assignment was executed by some of the over 1, 209 units of equipment bought to enhance the local capacity for site works since even the biggest local civil contractors were unable to handle even small portions of the construction's requirement.

Edwin explained: "We have bought over 750 pieces of equipment to enhance the local capacity for site works since even Julius Berger, Dantata & Sawoe, Hi-Tech, and the like were unable to handle even small portions of our construction requirement of heavy earth-moving equipment, bulldozers, excavators, bobcats, compactors and front end loaders." Of all Dangote Group projects, it is only at Obajana Cement and the petrochemical complex that Dangote Industries is the APC contractor. Asked about the reason for this, the executive director said: "Obajana was our first major investment, and we spent about $1.2b in the first two trains, not all the expansions that we have done now. We were not the APC contractors at that time and three major contractors from across the world applied." The Dangote chief explained that the refinery designed for 100 per cent Nigerian crude with the flexibility to process others, apart from meeting and surpassing the country's gasoline needs, would also create a market of $11b per annum for Nigerian crude, even as it possesses strategically located marine infrastructure for crude receipts and product trade.

"We are also producing polypropylene and polyethylene, which are essential components in the manufacturing of plastics. So, we will be supplying to the petrochemical industry in Nigeria." "The refinery's production of critical products like naphtha and polypropylene will stimulate the development of other industries, such as cosmetics, plastics, and textiles. Refineries on this scale could save Nigeria up to $10 billion in foreign exchange and generate approximately $10 billion from exports.

Commenting on the country's import dependency and reliance on foreign markets, he said the multi-billion dollar facility presents major prospects for import substitution and supply chain localisation. "We see room for development of added value in agribusiness too. Here, initiatives like our Sugar Backward Integration Projects look to create a strong localised supply in the sugar industry. With a goal to produce around 0.5 million tons of sugar per annum from locally grown sugar cane, benefits will be created across the sugar value chain for local suppliers," he added.

"Sub-Saharan Africa presents an opportunity for expansion, as its population is projected to grow from 1.1 billion to over 2.1 billion by 2050, with two-thirds of this growth in urban areas. Nigeria currently has an installed cement production capacity of about 54m tons/pa, which exceeds local demand and so a lot of this can be exported across Africa."