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Billionaire says 650,000-barrel-day plant to finish next year
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Wood Mackenize says refinery won’t be completed until 2022
Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote said he’s on schedule to finish by
next year his $15 billion oil refinery, which will be one of the
world’s biggest, despite analysts saying the timeline is ambitious.
“There
are quite a lot of challenges, but we’re moving,” Dangote told
reporters at a conference in Paris about the plant, which is being built
near Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, and designed to process
650,000 barrels of crude daily. “We’re still targeting next year for
commissioning.”
Aliko Dangote
Photographer: Wei Leng Tay/Bloomberg
The 61-year-old said he will export about 35 percent of the
refinery’s products, while the rest will serve the local market. His
Dangote Industries Ltd. said last year
the plan is to produce about 50 million liters (13.2 million gallons) a
day of gasoline and 15 million liters of diesel, though output can be
changed according to demand. The company has been in talks with oil
traders including Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Vitol Group and Trafigura Group
Pte about them supplying crude and buying refined fuel.
Analysts have questioned whether Dangote, worth $10.8 billion
according to the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index, will be able to
complete such a massive project on time and within costs.
Edinburgh-based Wood Mackenzie doesn’t see the refinery starting
production until 2022.
The
complex will include a $2.5 billion fertilizer factory with a capacity
of 3 million metric tons annually, set to be ready this year, and a
petrochemical plant. They will be powered by gas, which will be sent
from the Niger River delta via two 550-kilometer (341-mile) underwater
pipelines, also costing Dangote about $2.5 billion.
“By next year, we’ll be exporting almost 2 million metric tons of urea and ammonia,” Dangote said.
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