Africa’s largest oil refinery and the world’s biggest single-train facility is set to be operational in early 2021 despite the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic – Dangote Group Executive Director Devakumar Edwin has confirmed.
Work is still on-going at the Dangote Refinery, which is expected to be commissioned in January next year. The completion of the project was scheduled for 2020 but progress was interrupted by the global outbreak of coronavirus.
“We had provided for mechanical completion by end of this year and had planned for the commissioning from January next year,” he said.
According to Devakumar, the project has only delayed by about two months which he says still falls within the time frame of completion. “There is a shift of 2 months maximum period of mechanical completion from December.”
He however says that the situation has improved and that there are laid out plans to catch up with the delay period. “we have devised a plan and we are trying to put it into action. If It works out well, we will still be able to maintain our original completion dates and if it doesn’t, the maximum delay period will be 2 months,” he said.
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Dangote Group is undertaking an ambitious and a visionary project to build Africa’s largest oil refinery complex able to process 650 000 barrels of crude oil per day.
The Pipeline Infrastructure at the Dangote Petroleum Refinery is the largest anywhere in the world, with 1,100 kilometers to handle 3 Billion Standard Cubic Foot of gas per day. The Refinery alone has a 400MW Power Plant that is able to meet the total power requirement of Ibadan DisCo
The plant will not only help Nigeria meet its own fuel demand and become self-sufficient, but will also add Nigeria to the list of top global exporters of gasoline, diesel, aviation jet fuel as well as other petrochemicals and petroleum-based products, such as polypropylene.
In addition to featuring the world’s largest single crude distillation column, Dangote Refinery will have a number of processing units containing more than 65 columns and requiring more than 15 static mixers.
The units include residue fluid catalytic cracker, mild hydro cracker, alkylation, naphtha hydrofining and continuous catalytic reforming units for the production of gasoline and diesel meeting Euro V standards as well as jet fuel adhering to international aviation specifications.
Sulzer has designed and supplied the internals for all of the refinery’s columns. These are now being installed under the guidance of Sulzer’s engineers.
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The Dangote integrated oil refinery and petrochemical project under construction in the Lekki Free Zone near Lagos, Nigeria is expected to create 70 000 employment opportunities to Nigerians.
The Project is estimated to cost about US $12bn to complete.
Dangote refinery significance for Nigeria
Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil producer and also home to the second-largest proven oil reserves in Africa. Between 2015 and 2019, Nigeria produced more than 2.5 million barrels of crude oil per day.
The country whose oil reserves stand at 37 billion barrels is among the top 10 largest oil producers in the world but is still reliant on imported refined fuel products due to lack of domestic refining capacity.
Upon completion, the Dangote oil refinery will double Nigeria’s capacity and help counter the growing demand for domestic fuel, while generating foreign exchange through exports. The Refinery will meet 100% of the Nigerian requirement of all refined products and also have a surplus of each of these products for export.
