Dangote Refinery: Africa’s biggest Single Oil Project

• Dangote Refinery: Africa’s biggest Single Oil Project

Dangote oil refinery is Africa’s biggest single oil project by any person or government.

The refinery has the capacity to produce 650,000 barrels per day and transform Nigeria’s economy from an importer of refined petroleum products to an exporter. The refinery is the third biggest single project by any person or government in Africa. The other two are Grand Inga Dam ($100 billion) and Egypt’s new capital city ($45 billion).

The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, during a facility visit earlier this year said: “You all will attest to the fact that this is certainly a transformational project for Nigeria, and it totally keyed into the objectives of President Muhammadu Buhari that says that we need to think about how to conserve foreign exchange and diversify the economy.

“And to put it in proper perspective, by the time you dimension the size of foreign exchange that we use in importing petroleum products into the country today, it is at least the one-third of the foreign exchange that the Central Bank spends to import items into Nigeria today.

The refinery section of the industrial site is estimated to cost about $9 billion while the fertilizer section will cost about $2 billion and has already employed 26,000 people. Upon completion, the project would have employed 80,000 people according to Dangote. Bloomberg put the estimated cost of the project at $17 billion.

The company, Dangote Group, is expected to generate around $30 billion in revenue by 2020 when the refinery is projected to commence operation.

Dangote, who spoke at Africa Investment Forum in Johannesburg, South Africa in November 2018, admitted that the feat is one he would have doubted a decade ago.

“Ten years ago, if you mentioned to me or even if I actually saw it in a dream that our company would have revenue of $30bn, I would have said it was impossible.

“But today, by 2020, we will have $30bn of revenue. Why? Because we have gone into a very bold product and while people are running away from investing, we are investing.”

Dangote said the Group would generate about $25 billion from petrochemicals, refinery and oil alone, while the remaining $6 billion would come from other investments.