Dangote Oil Refinery Company Limited has said its 600,000 barrels of crude oil per day (bpd) plant located at the Lekki Free Trade Zone in Lagos would be the world’s largest refinery.
Senior General Manager, Civil and Structural, Mr. Madhav Kelkar, stated this during a facility tour of the plant last week.
The refinery, sited on 2,600 hectares of land will produce gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel/household kerosene, slurry as raw material for carbon black, as well as 750,000 mtpa of polypropylene and fertilizer. On completion, he said the refinery would become the first of its kind, having the largest single train refinery in the world.
“Most companies build refineries in phases and porches and on different locations across the globe. But for the Dangote Refinery, everything is situated on one site. Most of the refineries you see around are 20 to 30 years old, but for the first time, we will be seeing the first of such in the world and in Africa.
“This has never been done anywhere in the world before. Dredging from the high sea with a very high level of precision while bringing in state-of-the-art equipment alongside top-notch expertise from everywhere across the world,” he affirmed.
He explained that the vision of the founder, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, was not just to supply the domestic market alone but to have a Nigeria that will be self-sufficient in petroleum products production, while exporting the excess to other parts of the world.
He said the critical aspect of the project, which is land reclamation, would be concluded in the next five months to give way for installation of the plants’ components for take off.
The manager said all contractors, including Jan De Nul of Belgium and Sarathy Geotech of India have been fully mobilised to facilitate the dredging and soil investigation of the 2,600 hectres of land, which will accommodate the petrochemical and fertilizer plants.
“We have in place state-of-the-art technology and equipment to ensure the value chain, which consists of crude reception facility to the processing facility are adequately integrated,” he explained.
At the fertilizer plant site, General Manager, Dangote Fertilizer, Jaiswal Anurag, confirmed that the plant has attained 90 per cent of engineering work and that 80 per cent of equipment have arrived the country. Anurag also said the contractors, Trevi Foundation, Onshore Construction, SAIPEM, TATA, and Dantata and Sawoe have fully mobilised to site.
He said the fertilizer plant is most likely going to take off before the petrochemical. Speaking on the level of work done at the temporary jetty, Mr. Emmanuel Chukwu, Project Engineer at Dantata and Sawoe, said work on the site has attained 95 per cent completion.
“We will complete dredging, loading and offloading facilities this month (October). The dredging will link the facility from the lagoon to the sea. We are moving at a very high speed because we commenced work in July 2014 and this October, we shall be completing all the work,” he assured.
