The president/ chief executive of Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote, has announced intentions to publicly list the subsidiary of the Group, Dangote Petroleum Refinery on the Nigerian Exchange Limited.
Dangote made this known in an interview with the Financial Times, stating that the company has resolved challenges about crude oil supply and is now prepared for the listing.
According to Dangote, we have resolved all the issues with crude oil supply. We are now ready to move forward with our plans to list the refinery on the Nigerian Exchange Limited.
He revealed that the refinery, which is expected to produce diesel, kerosene and jet fuel, would start operations in December, saying that a deal has been finalised for the first cargo of about six million barrels scheduled for delivery next month.
At its full planned capacity, the refinery would be able to produce 650,000 oil barrels per day, subsequently, with an initial rollout of 540,000 barrels per day.
The refinery, expected to generate 27 million litres of diesel, 11 million litres of kerosene, and nine million litres of jet fuel, will source crude from various producers in Nigeria, including the country’s state oil company.
Meanwhile, industry operators, government officials and stakeholders expressed optimism that the refinery will bring about humongous benefits not just to the oil and gas sector, but to the Nigerian economy at large.
They said the refinery is a key driver of growth that would impact positively on the downstream sector of the Nigerian and African economy from this year.
They expected the refinery to save Nigeria billions of naira, based on the fact that import of Premium Motor Spirit, otherwise known as, petrol into the country would cease, going by the refining capacity of the plant.
President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina recently described Dangote Refinery projects as the best industrialised project to happen to Africa, saying this project would positively affect the economic growth and development of not only Nigeria but Africa as a continent.
Adesina added that “These projects will reverse the huge sum the nation spends on foreign exchange, when you look at how much we import, it is about $57 billion worth of different products and we export only about $50.4 billion, so we have to balance that with about $7 billion and talking to them here, they showed us that they can have a domestic market of about $11 billion and that is an incredible market and that will save Nigeria about $9 billion dollars, a year from importing petroleum products, so this is huge for Nigeria and even for Africa as a continent.”
Director-general of Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Dr. Chinyere Almona said “with a few days to the inauguration of Dangote Refinery, the Chamber commend the efforts of its visioner, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, and the supportive federal government.
“Expected to be Africa’s biggest oil refinery and the world’s single-trained facility, the Dangote Refinery has a capacity of 650,000 barrels per day, sufficient to meet Nigeria’s need for refined petroleum products.”
