Page 4 - Downstream Monitor - MEA Week 43

DMEA CommentaRy DMEA
Dangote
refinery to
launch in 2021
Nigeria’s long-awaited Dangote refinery is on track for completion in early 2021, according to a company official, with capacity to be reached later that year.
afRiCa
What:
The 650,000 bpd facility will be Africa’s largest refinery and is seen transforming Nigeria’s fuel markets.
Why:
The country has a woeful record of maintaining
its downstream infrastructure and it has taken the continent’s richest man to get a significant refinery to this stage.
What next:
A Dangote executive
said that diesel and Jet A-1 fuel produced at the facility would be exported to international markets.
The 650,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery being built by Nigeria’s Dangote Group at the Lekki Free Trade Zone (FTZ) near Lagos is scheduled to be commissioned in early 2021 and reach full capacity midway through that year.
Speaking to Bloomberg at a conference in Lagos, Dangote Industries executive director Devakumar edwin said that the refinery would meet Nigerian demand for gasoline, with small volumes of surplus being exported. Diesel and Jet A-1 fuel are to be sent to international markets.
“We are confident that we can meet 100% of the requirement of the country, so the balance will go for export,” edwin said.
The facility is key to Nigerian efforts to improve its downstream sector, and has long been hoped to transform the country from a fuels importer to a net exporter.
edwin said in the summer that the refinery would not reach mechanical completion until the end of 2020, with output ramping up thereaf- ter. The latest delays came about because of issues with the nearby Port of Apapa, through which equipment for the facility was being transported.
Routes to market
Reuters quoted edwin as saying that the refinery would depend on roads and sea ports for bring- ing its products to market despite earlier reports
that a dedicated pipeline would be built. Speak- ing at the OTL (Oil Trading and Logistics) expo, he said that fuel would be transported in “shut- tle” boats to Nigerian cities Warri and Calabar, with other products being trucked.
With the surrounding infrastructure in var- ying states of disrepair, Dangote is repairing and expanding one road, while the state govern- ment is building a toll road to facilitate deliver- ies. edwin said: “That’s going to reduce a lot of congestion.”
taking shape
The refinery’s atmospheric tower – the world’s largest – recently arrived at Lekki following the journey from the Chinese port of Ningbo. The atmospheric tower will be the refinery’s primary unit for processing crude to fuel.
The facility will also be integrated with a pet- rochemical unit that will produce polypropylene and fertilizers. According to official documents, the completed complex will produce 10.4mn tonnes per year of gasoline and 4mn tpy each of diesel and aviation fuels.
Dangote, led by Nigerian Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, is developing the refinery which has an anticipated final cost varying sig- nificantly from $9bn to $15bn.
The company obtained a groundbreaking
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 43 31•October•2019