Olufemi Adeyemi
Buhari on Monday inaugurated Dangote Petroleum Refinery in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, which is expected to enable Nigeria to achieve self-sufficiency in refined products and even have surplus for export.
Buhari inaugurated the facility on Monday in Lagos — the
nation’s commercial city — as bigwigs, industry players, and presidents of
African countries, gathered to witness the unveiling of a $19 billion facility,
set to revolutionise crude oil refining in Africa.
The landmark inauguration comes a decade after Aliko
Dangote, Africa’s richest businessman, announced plans for the refinery in
September 2013, when he secured about $3.3 billion in financing for the
project.
It also comes after efforts to begin production at the
facility failed twice: the first time was in October 2019 when a top official
said the project would be ready in 2021.
The second time was in January when Dangote said the
refinery would begin processing crude by the third quarter of 2022.
Speaking at the inauguration Buhari said facility has the
capacity to process 650,000 barrels a day of crude which would enable “our
country to achieve self-sufficiency in refined products, and even have some
surplus for export”.
“This clearly makes this event a notable milestone for our
economy and a game-changer for the downstream petroleum products market, not
only in Nigeria, but the entire African continent,” the president said.
Buhari, stressing on the significance of the project, said
Nigeria’s economy has been stressed for many decades by efficiencies in
economic infrastructure and over a decade of insurgency.
He said has also been severely impacted by several external
crisis including the global financial crisis, the collapse of oil prices, the
COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war.
According to the president, the consequences of these
challenges constitutes a severe strain on “our economy, limiting government’s
ability to provide basic infrastructure without resorting to huge borrowings.
“Our government, therefore, took the decision to focus
attention on creating an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive
and fill the enormous depth in investments not only in infrastructure, but also
in all critical sectors,” Buhari said.
“We recognise that without active participation of the
private sector and a strong commitment to public private partnership, our
economy will continue to remain severely challenged.
“Government, therefore, will and should continue to provide
an enabling environment and encourage innovative public private partnership in
all sectors of our economy.”
The Dangote Petroleum Refinery, with a capacity to process
650,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd), is sitting on 2,635 hectares of land
located in Dangote Industries Free Zone in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, and will employ
over 100,000 persons.
The coming onstream of the project is expected to mark
Nigeria’s exit from the league of oil-rich nations which are heavy importers of
petroleum products.
It expected that the new refinery would meet 100 percent of
the Nigerian requirement of all refined products (gasoline, 53 million litres
per day; diesel, 34 million litres per day; kerosene, 10 million litres per day,
and aviation jet, (2 million litres per day), and also have a surplus of each
of these products for export.
The refinery is also said to be designed for 100 percent
Nigerian crude with the flexibility to process other crudes.
Dangote, addressing guests at the event thanked Buhari for
his unwavering commitment to the project.
He promised that petroleum products from the refinery would
circulate in the Nigerian market soon.
“Our first goal is to ramp up projections of various
production to ensure that within this year, we are able to fully satisfy our
nation’s demand for higher quality products to enable us to eliminate the
tragedy of import dependency and stop, once and for all, the dumping in our
market of toxic substandard petroleum products” the billionaire said.
“Our first products will be in the market before the end of
July, beginning of August this year”.
In a statement issued some days ago, the Nigeria Employers” Consultative Association (NECA) described the Refinery a succour to a nation in dire need of industrial renaissance.
NECA, in the statement signed by its Director-General, Mr
Adewale-Smatt Oyerinde, said the commissioning of the petroleum refinery and
petrochemical plant as well as the fertilizer plant will bring an end to
importation of petroleum products into Nigeria.
“Rather, there will be export of finished products,
availability of petroleum products, thus, putting an end to long queues and
scarcity of petroleum products.
“A significant plus of this feat will be the attraction of
foreign capital investments that the country desperately needs, “ he said.
The NECA boss said also, that the multiplier effect of its
target 135,000 direct and indirect jobs for Nigerians and displacement of
plastics imports in the fiscal space were a part of the economic springboard
the refinery would bring to the Nigerian economy.
He said, in addition, that it would lead to skills transfer and technology acquisition opportunities with beneficial impacts on the downstream sector.
“This refinery in a sum, is one edifice that will
turbo-charge the engine of the Nigerian economy.
“It will also unstrap the strings holding the development of
the economy and wade off external and domestic headwinds against efficacies of
fiscal and monetary instruments, “ he said.
Oyerinde said also that the refinery, with 60 per cent of
the production capacity, could meet the entire consumption needs of the
country.
He said that the other 40 per cent would be exported,
generating a huge amount of foreign exchange.
According to him, this in no small measure, will impact
positively on the country’s balance of payment.
“We call on government and other stakeholders to pay more
attention to creating an enabling environment for organised businesses to
thrive so that we have more private sector investment to reengineer the
nation’s economy, “ Oyerinde said.