Ahead of the completion of the Dangote Oil Refinery, petroleum importing African nations and bulk oil distributors based in Ghana have expressed eagerness to patronise the Nigerian plant when production starts.
The oil buyers said arrangements had been put in place to import petroleum products from the world’s largest single-train refinery, situated in Lekki, Lagos State and owned by the foremost industrialist, Aliko Dangote.
Hints of the eager expectation and hopes on the Dangote Refinery were revealed at this year’s Ghanaian International Petroleum Conference (Ghipcon 2018), which held in Accra last week.
Participants at the 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.
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 products, adding that “we will rather purchase from the Dangote Refinery due to the proximity of the refinery to Ghana and other neighbours.”
President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, who was represented by Vice President Mahamud Bawumia, said African nations were anxiously waiting for the Dangote Refinery.
During their visit to the Dangote oil exhibition stand, the Ghanaian Vice President and Minister of Energy, Boakye Agyarko, were amazed at the size of the project and expressed satisfaction with the pace of work being done at the refinery as explained to them by Mr. Babajide Soyode, the Technical Adviser to the President of Dangote Group on Refinery and Petrochemical Matters, who led the Dangote Refinery team to the conference.
Vice President Bawumia commended Aliko Dangote on the initiative, which is 100% privately funded and expressed the hope that Ghana would stand to benefit from the project when it is completed.
On his part the Minister of Energy, Hon. Agyarko said it would take a big heart to embark on such a gigantic project and lauded the efforts of Africa’s richest man of in trying to meet the needs of the people.
He noted that projects such as this is 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.
Ghana is said to have a favorable petroleum market environment and investments in infrastructure such as oil jetties, pipeline and distribution infrastructure, refineries and gas processing plants, storage and loading gantries are welcome.
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 went further to state that the Nigerian government has been supportive of the refinery citing the visit of Nigerian Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu to the site of the Refinery during which he said the government would support efforts toward its completion.
“I have made 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 3 billion SCF of gas per day.
“There is also the plan to construct a 570mw 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 12,000MW of power generation can be added to the grid with the additional gas from the Dangote system.
