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AfrElec INVESTMENT AfrElec
Milestone reached as Dangote unit shipped from China
NIGERIA
THE world’s largest atmospheric tower this week began its journey from China to Nigeria, where it will be installed at the re nery being built by the local Dangote Group.
In a tweet, Chinese national oil co. (NOC) Sinopec said that the unit had set sail from the port of Ningbo on July 29. It added: “Following the Maritime #SilkRoad, it will travel to #Nigeria and be installed at the world’s biggest single-train facility - Nigeria’s Dangote Re nery.” e jour- ney is expected to take around a month.
Dangote, led by Nigerian Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, is developing the 650,000 barrel per day Dangote Oil Re ning Co. (DORC) facility in the Lekki Free Trade Zone, with the anticipated nal cost varying signi cantly from $9bn to $15bn.
Reuters quoted Citac analyst Jeremy Parker as saying that the atmospheric tower would be the re nery’s primary unit for processing crude to fuel.
e facility will also be integrated with a pet- rochemical unit that will produce polypropylene and fertilizers. According to o cial documents, the completed complex will produce 10.4 mil- lion tonnes per year of gasoline and 4 million tpy each of diesel and aviation fuels.
The company obtained a groundbreaking multi-billion-dollar international debt package six years ago and Dangote said last year that the re nery would be completed in 2019 and com- missioned in 2020.
Amid amid rumours of a two-year delay, Dangote again came out swinging in January,
publicly insisting that the scheme was on track, following the delivery earlier that month of the residual uid catalytic cracker unit.
Abuja has been hopeful that the start-up of the facility would bring an end petroleum prod- uct imports and as well as generating consider- able export revenues. However, several senior industry sources told NewsBase this week that gasoline and diesel are unlikely to be produced for several years, while two sources expressed their doubts about the volume of fuel that will be made available locally when the re nery is fully operational.
“ ere are many reasons why large interna- tional oil companies have backed away from investments in re ning in Nigeria,” said one source on condition of anonymity. He added: “Dangote has done great things for this coun- try, but he is a pragmatist and that has served him well. If there is one man who can realise the ambition of re ning Nigerian crude for domestic consumption, it is him, but do not underestimate the in uence of the fuel market- ing racket.”
e re nery is being con gured to process light and medium grade crudes, mainly sourced locally, into Euro V standard products, enabling signi cant exports to global markets.
Nigeria’s state-owned re neries have a cumu- lative nameplate capacity of 445,000 bpd, but uti- lisation rates are normally less than half of this, with rates of less than 12% reported in recent years meaning that imports are relied upon to meet more than 80% of demand.
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 30 31•July•2019
