Advanced orders for products appears to have kicked in for the much-awaited world’s biggest refinery being built by the company run by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, the Dangote Oil Refinery, it emerged recently in Accra, Ghana.
Attending a conference in Accra, Ghana, the company was inundated with interests by petroleum importing African countries as well as bulk oil distributors based in Ghana.
The oil buyers said arrangements have been put in place to import petroleum products from the world’s largest single-train refinery,
Participants at the international conference as well as oil distributors and marketers from various countries were eager to know how they could key in for supplies from the 650,000 barrel per day refinery, that is preparing to take the continent by storm.
The Ghanaian government expressed the view that dealing with Dangote Refinery for petroleum import would be a better business for African nations than depending on the international market for the supply of refined petroleum products.
“We will rather purchase from the Dangote Refinery due to the proximity of the refinery to Ghana and other neighbours,” they said.
President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, who was represented by Vice President Mahamud Bawumia, said African nations are anxiously waiting for Dangote Refinery.
During their visit to the Dangote oil exhibition stand, Bawumia and the minister of energy, Boakye Agyarko, were taken in by the size of the project and expressed satisfaction with the pace of work being done at the refinery as explained to them by Babajide Soyode, technical adviser on refinery and petrochemical matters to Aliko Dangote.
Agyarko said it would take a big heart to embark on such a gigantic project and lauded the efforts of Dangote.
He noted that projects such as this are what Africa needs to develop and that Ghana is ready to fully support Aliko to achieve his objectives of building a petrochemical plant to meet the energy needs of Ghana and the rest of Africa.
According to him, the completion of the project would culminate in the integration of the downstream industries, lower cost of business and reduce the prices of petroleum products across the sub-region.
Soyode noted that Dangote will always do his best in whatever sector of the economy he ventures into, and that is why this refinery will be completed and meet the needs of Nigeria, West Africa, and the entire African continent.
He said that the Nigerian government has been supportive of the refinery citing the visit of Nigeria’s minister of state for petroleum resources, Ibe Kachikwu to the site of the refinery during which he said the government would support efforts
“I have made a very firm commitment to Nigerians that I must stop the importation of petroleum products by 2019 and I am going to keep to it.”, Kachikwu was quoted to have said.
Soyode told his guests that In addition to the refinery, the Dangote Group is also building the largest sub-sea pipeline infrastructure in any country in the world, with a length of 1,100km, to handle three billion SCF of gas per day.
“There is also the plan to construct a 570 MW power plant in this complex. The gas from the gas pipeline will augment the natural domestic
gas supply and it is estimated that an additional 12,000 MW of power generation can be added to the grid with the additional gas from the Dangote system,” he said.
