Africa’s largest oil refinery will not be finished until the end of 2020 due to problems importing steel and other equipment, executives at Dangote said.
“We will be able to complete the (refinery) project by the end of next year – mechanical completion,” Dangote Group Executive Director Devakumar Edwin who oversees the project said in an interview with Reuters
The company expects fuel production within two months of completion of the refinery, which could transform Africa’s biggest crude producer from a fuel importer into a net exporter, upending global trade patterns.
Aliko Dangote, who built his fortune on cement, first announced a smaller refinery in 2013, to be finished in 2016. Dangote then moved the site to Lekki, in Lagos, upgraded the size and said production would start in early 2020.
Nigeria imports virtually all its fuel due to underutilised refineries, and even the state oil company is looking to the 650,000 barrel per day (bpd) Dangote refinery to help address this.
Price caps force NNPC to import nearly all its gasoline at a significant cost and periodic fuel shortages are common.
Despite the delays at the congested Apapa and Tin Can Island ports in Lagos, a Dangote executive said the company could start using the refinery’s tank farms as a depot to warm up operations.
Edwin also said during an interview at his office in Lagos that Dangote is setting up its own trading desk, with a senior team of three people and a staff of roughly 30 who will monitor international commodity prices.
“We are setting up a complete trading desk here with us. In the next three months the full desk will be set up,” he said.
Edwin said the crude unit for the refinery, which set sail from China last month, would arrive by the end of October.
The trains at a fertilizer plant on the same site will start up by the end of this year, the executives said.
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