Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man and chairman of Dangote group, has highlighted five key projects to be executed by his firm that would help in boosting development in Africa.
In a recent meeting with business minds in the Ivory Coast, Dangote noted that the projects were already in the works and could cut across different sectors of the economy including oil and gas, Fertilizer, Agriculture and in cement manufacturing.
“We have about five major projects that we are aiming to execute that will help in projection Africa as major producer and exporter of key products”, Dangote said in an interview with Mo Ibrahim in the Ivorian capital.
Among these projects is the oil refinery located around the Lekki-Epe axis of Nigeria’s commercial hub, Lagos state, which is expected to be completed by 2022.
The refinery will produce 650000 barrel per day of crude oil that will help in placing Nigeria as one of the largest exporters of petroleum products on the continent. The refinery is estimated at a cost as high as $13 billion, according to Dangote.
“What we are trying to do is to do exactly what we did in cement. Nigeria used to be number two in the world after the US in terms of cement importation but now we are self-sufficient and by this year, we will be the largest exporters of fuel in Africa with 8million tonnes of extension”.
The project will also include building a petrochemical industry that will have the capacity to produce 1.3million tons of polypropylene and polyethene, that will enable Africa’s biggest oil producer to take the spot of being the second largest exporter of petroleum products in Sub-Sahara Africa after.
The company also has in works a fertilizer plant that will enable it to be producing as much as 3 million tons of urea and ammonia. “We also have the gas pipeline and then we have the cement which we are doing about two billion worth of expansion in the cement manufacturing space”. He noted.
Dangote currently has cement factories in about 14 countries. It has factories operational in 11 countries while some other new cement facilities are currently on-going.
In Agriculture, Dangote said it is building a 1 million metric ton rice production plant with the use of integrated power.
Of all these projects, Dangote noted that the most challenging one for the company is the oil refinery as the firm had to resort into building its own port to enable shipment of equipment since the ports available lack the desired capacity. However, the company has been able to navigate through as it opened its eyes to see the lack of infrastructure in Africa.
“The real challenge of the project for us is having to build our own port because none of the ports in Nigeria could actually take the weight. We brought in seven regenerators from Korea weighing 3000 metric tons to regenerate the crude. The ports in Nigeria could only take 150 tonnes and we are also faced with the roads as we had to build a special road that all our equipment was going to pass”, Dangote said.
According to him, some 365 million cubic metres of sand gotten from the sea was pumped into the site. “We brought the two world biggest dredgers to work there for about 10-11 months. The refinery with about 136000 piles is the largest you can ever find anywhere in the world”
MICHAEL ANI
