Africa's wealthiest billionaire invests $20 billion in a refinery to revitalize Nigeria's oil sector.
On Monday, Nigeria commissioned the Dangote oil refinery, which is seen as a "game-changer" in terms of reducing the country's reliance on imported petroleum.
In an occasion attended by various West African heads of state, outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari commissioned the 650,000 barrels per day capacity refinery at the Lekki free trade zone region of the commercial capital Lagos.
$20 billion in value The Dangote Group's massive refinery, controlled by Africa's richest man Aliko Dangote, plans to generate up to 53 million liters of gasoline per day, as well as 4 million liters of diesel and 2 million liters of aviation jet fuel on a daily basis.
During the occasion, Dangote referred to the refinery as "the world's largest single train refinery."
The refinery is anticipated to alleviate some of Nigeria's petroleum-related problems. Nigeria, although being an oil-producing country and one of Africa's top producers, lacks the capacity to refine its oil.
Many of the items available in the West African country are imported from other countries such as India, Belgium, the United Arab Emirates, and the Netherlands.
According to OPEC, a group of major oil producers, the cost of importing refined petroleum products surpassed the cost of exporting by $58.5 billion between 2015 and 2019.
Nigeria's lack of refining capability poses several issues, including annual import expenditures in the billions of dollars and vulnerability to disruptions in local petroleum supplies.
The Dangote refinery is notable because it intends to address these issues by doubling the country's refining capacity, boosting local fuel consumption, and producing foreign cash for the government through exports.
"There will be constant availability of high-quality fuels for our transportation sector, and the refinery will also make vital raw materials available to our industries for a wide range of manufacturing," said Dangote, who contributed to the refinery's development.
Around half of the capital required to develop the refinery came from Dangote's equity investment, with the other half coming from loan financing provided by banks such as Access and Zenith.
"We created the world's biggest refinery, capable of processing 650,000 barrels per day in a single train... We chose a facility with cutting-edge technology and a capacity that would be a game changer in Africa and the global market," Dangote continued.
The refinery is located within the Lekki Free Zone, a 16,500-hectare free trade zone with a masterplan that includes a projected airport, a start-up community, and commercial and residential districts.
According to Godwin Emefiele, the head of Nigeria's Central Bank, the refinery "is more than capable of meeting all of Nigeria's domestic fuel consumption, given its processing capacity."
Emefiele went on to say, "Nigeria can be self-sufficient in all products that we consume while exporting our excess output to the rest of the world."
Ghana's President Nana Akufo-Ado, who attended the inauguration, called the Dangote refinery a "spectacular project" that "makes West Africa better and stronger."
The refinery is seven times the size of Lagos' Victoria Island, occupying almost 2000 hectares.
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