Taiwo Hassan 
The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) has facilitated the President and Management of Dangote Group on the completion and commissioning of the multi-billion dollar petroleum refinery located in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos. The refinery, which is situated on land spanning approximately 2,635 hectares, is the world’s largest single train 650,000 barrels per day petroleum refinery with a 9000 KTPA Polypropylene Plant ever built. MAN in its press release made available to New Telegraph and signed by the Director-General, Mr. Segun Ajayi-Kadir, said: “It is gratifying to note that the refinery can meet 100 percent of Nigeria’s requirement for all refined products (Gasoline, 57 million litres per day; Diesel, 27 million litres per day; Kerosene, 11 million litres per day and Aviation Jet, 9 million litres per day) and also have a surplus of each of these products for export.
“Therefore, the coming onboard of the Dangote Refinery promises to bring to pleasant end, the nightmare of long queues at petrol filling station and the disruption of social and economic activities that come with it.” He said that the refinery when fully operational is expected to generate $10 billion from export of refined petroleum products and save Nigeria an estimated $10 billion in foreign exchange. In the release, MAN revealed that with state-of-the-art technology, the refinery was designed to produce with 100 per cent Nigerian crude with the flexibility to process other crudes from Africa, Middle East, and US light oil. It has a self-sufficient facility with the ability for freight optimisation.
“With the largest single order of 5 SPMs anywhere in the world, diesel and gasoline products from the refinery will conform to Euro V specifications. “The refinery design complies with the World Bank, US EPA, European emission standards, and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) emission/effluent standards.” To cushion the potential impact of increase in mean sea level due to global warming, Ajayi-Kadir explained that the company took appropriate measures using the world’s largest, 2nd and 10th largest dredgers to elevate the sea height by 1.5 metres. The MAN DG said: “Dangote Group is one of the few companies in the world executing a petroleum refinery and a petrochemical complex directly as an Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) Contractor. Globally, apart from three companies, no individual owner has done the complete EPC Contract for a petroleum refinery.”
On employment, Ajayi-Kadir stated that the refinery offered the highest number of employees by any private company, including 100,000 indirect employments at retail outlets; 26,716 filling stations and 129 depots in Nigeria. “Quite interestingly, the 16,000 trucks for transport will create additional jobs and, in the process, the company has trained over 400 artisans selected from host communities in the areas of Masonry, Carpentry, AC Electricians, Plumbing, Welders, Iron-benders and Auto Mechanics,” he added. Ajayi-Kadir stated: “For all the determination and trail blazing zeal to bring this dream into reality, we congratulate the President/ CEO of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, GCON on the occasion of the official commissioning of this pride-of-Africa birthed-in- Nigeria project.”
While speaking at the commissioning, Dangote hailed Buhari, Tinubu for the success of the ambitious refinery project. Speaking against the optimism by Nigerians hoping to gain from the move in the nation’s petroleum industry, notorious for incessant scarcity and fluctuation in prices, Dangote, the richest man in Africa, in a post shared via Twitter, took out time to also thank the President, for the immeasurable support his company got from the inception of the project to its completion, while praising Tinubu, a former Governor of Lagos State, for providing the enabling environment for the setting up of the project. His words: “Well, what I want to share with Nigerians is actually to show my personal gratitude and that of the Dangote Group, for all the assistance that we got from the President, from the Federal Government of Nigeria, from even the president-elect, because he also set the pace by creating the Lekki Free Trade Zone as part of his dream.”
