As Dangote Petroleum Refinery Finally Goes on Stream…

After several delays, the US$19 billion Dangote Refinery, the world’s largest single-stream petroleum products processing plant, will be formally inaugurated today, in the Lekki Free Trade Zone of Lagos State.

And the epochal milestone will be flagged off by none other than President Mohammadu Buhari who leaves office in a week. This is one assignment (and prime photo op) he would have regretted handing over to his successor. Word is, the commissioning has been hurried to allow Buhari to take the lap of honour.

Many hopes ride on today’s inauguration, the chief of which is the hope of bringing to an end Nigeria’s perennial shameful odyssey of importing almost all the petroleum products she consumes domestically, despite being a major oil and gas producer and having installed capacity to process 445,000 barrels of crude oil per day, in four government-owned refineries located in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna.

 

Along with the already commissioned Dangote Petrochemicals plant, they sit on a site on the Atlantic coast in Lekki, bigger than Victoria Island, Lagos.

 

Many are also curious to resolve the riddle of choosing Lekki over the virgin Atlantic coastline of the Niger Delta, from where the bulk of the natural gas and crude oil will flow to the Lekki complex, through 1,100 kilometres of subsea pipelines (the biggest such investment in the world). The money invested in the subsea pipeline would have been saved, had the plant been sited in the Niger Delta.

 

Another riddle to be resolved is why the NNPC invested US$2.7 billion of taxpayers’ money in the Dangote project, ostensibly to buy 20 percent of the project (how were the shares priced?), in addition to a commitment to supply 300,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

 

The most important riddle Nigerians would like to resolve however, is why “petroleum subsidy” is still being mentioned and may continue to feature in our economic management lexicon, long after trucks, ships, and other modes of transportation begin feeding the Dangote refinery products into our domestic distribution infrastructure – replacing the corruption laded petroleum products imports.

We will engage with these issues here and on several other platforms, in the days and weeks to come.

 

Meanwhile, congratulations to Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote, for the major achievement - perhaps the most challenging project he has ever undertaken. Congratulations should also go to President Buhari and Nigerians in general for a new chapter in the history of the Nigerian petroleum industry.

 

Ironically, the man who takes over from Buhari in a week’s time – Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, will also be present at the inauguration. It was he, who initiated the conversations with the Chinese, even before he became Governor of Lagos State in 1999. Those conversations culminated in what is now known as the Lekki Free Zone. Participating in today’s ceremonies must be a very proud moment for him.

 

 

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