By Emeka Amaefula
FACTS ABOUT DANGOTE REFINERY LUNCH AND $18BN INVESTMENT LARGEST SINGLE PROJECT IN THE WORLD
On Monday 22nd of May, 2023 the lunch of Dangote Refinery and Petrochemical Industries made its debut with the attendant of seven Presidents and several captains of industry with array of politicians and socialites who graced the occasion. What is remarkable remains the focus and direction of the investor Aliko Dangote who remained steadfast in meeting targets all the period the construction work was going on. Given the projected production capacity of 650,000 barrels of oil per day Dangote Refinery and Petrochemical industry has placed Nigeria and Africa to the limelight most developed economies will be envious about for years to come.
It is now on record that Dangote Refinery and Petrochemical Industry commenced work on an industrial complex seven times the size of Victoria Island Lagos. Even though it had originally been planned to use two Local Government Areas in Rivers State comprising sections of Okrika and Eleme Local Government Areas but was shifted to Lagos state for obvious reasons by the top investor. The parameters of the scope of this project now located at Lekki inside Lagos generates 570Mega Watts of electricity all to be consumed by the project with estimated reserved redundancy value, Given the magnitude of this project it has become the largest active single project current ongoing in the world which has placed Nigeria on a global map for investment haven for others to come in and contribute their own quota. Therefore, it has been identified to be the second largest refinery in the world having a well laid internal road with 45 bridges constructed within the industrial complex which will aid internal movement of men and material. In all the beautiful industrial city planned to accommodate the workforce and the complex a total of 123 road networks are found within this industrial city. The ecstatic architectural design of 125 control centres which housed various sub-units of the refinery and Petrochemical complex. This industrial city remains a beautiful eco-friendly one with accommodation for 50,000 workers among the 300, 000 workforce from around the world all converging at the execution and its daily management.
The project has 30, 000 networks of underground pipes and cables deeply buried underground with specifications given the fact that the underground cables meant for the industrial city already embedded therein will go around the world twice. All with high quality standard wire gauge armoured cables. During the construction period there were about 40,000 containers comprising 20’ and 40’ boxes all housed in the containers with combined total storage of finished products worth 4.2billion litres. Same period under review of the construction stage about 300 cranes of several sizes were acquired by the investor himself in addition to the cranes brought in by contractors at the site. During the earth work 43 piling machines using dredgers acquired by Dangote Group of companies were deployed to the project with 5,000 tons capacity of cranes being the only two of its kind found throughout the world meant for the installation of Crude oil Separating Units with two other units resulted to the leasing of such quality of machine.
Today Dangote Group of companies has the largest equipment fleet owned by a single company in Africa which contributes immensely to the realization of 250 million Man-hours of work invested on the project prior to the Commissioning proper. Thus, there are great expectations to the services of block chain benefits coming from the operation of Dangote Refinery and Petrochemical industries with the commencement of shipment of fertilizers to Brazil and United States of America coupled to the supply of Fertilizers to local end users with target of improved food supply to the entire populace. As the finished products of the refined petroleum itself will hit the market by end of July 2023 thereby improving local content of fossil fuel consumption in Nigeria.
