The coming on stream of the Dangote Refinery and Petrochemicals will go a long way in bringing the much desired resolution to the unemployment crisis ploughing the nation as the company would engage about 2000 personnel in the field of engineering only.
Group Executive Director, Strategy, Portfolio Development & Capital Projects, Dangote Industries Limited, Devakumar Edwin, disclosed this while receiving the officials of Petroleum Trust Development Fund (PTDF) who paid a visit to the head office of the Dangote Group in Lagos at the weekend.
According to him, opportunities for thousands of indirect jobs is huge given that there is a fertilizer and petrochemical complex within the refinery.
He explained that the 650,000 barrels-per-day Dangote Refinery currently under construction, is 50 per cent bigger than the current largest single train refinery in the world; and has the latest technology to challenge any such plant in Europe.
Giving an overview of the Dangote Refinery to the visiting Head, Press & External Relations, PTDF, Kalu Otise and Lawal Ibrahim of the same unit, the Dangote boss said “although most refineries abroad tend towards mass production of diesel, the Dangote Refinery is designed to produce gasoline more than diesel, which is unique to us.
“Also, for every barrel of crude that goes in, we want to extract the maximum number of products to boost the return on investment. Our refinery products can be sold in any part of the world.”
He also noted that because of the technology deployed in the construction of the Dangote Refinery (which will be the world’s largest single-train refinery upon completion), the personnel had to be trained from scratch, with engineers sent to India and South Africa.
According to him, “From Nigeria, our people have gone throughout Africa and beyond for training. They are trained and equipped, they can do exceedingly well. In oil and gas, there is an advantage because there is already some level of expertise there.”
Concerning the refinery workforce, Edwin explained that “we adopted the highest level of employment standard from both Europe and America. On our manpower requirement, we got thousands of applications, and the applicants were put through a rigorous process and sent in batches to India and other countries for training.”
Commending the PTDF for the quality of its graduates, the Dangote boss, who noted that the company needs close to 2,000 engineers, said, “In any company, the human beings are the most important and the success of any organisation depends on the team work. I believe in the importance of the people”.
Responding to a poser from the PTDF officials on the importance of vocational skills, he said, “When I develop people with vocational skills, I can deploy them in places outside the refinery. There are so many businesses we are developing, so we can employ them elsewhere”.
“I was impressed by the PTDF redentials. PTDF has a vision and is transforming the vision into reality, despite all the constraints The biggest problem of Nigeria today is unemployment. PTDF is providing the experience to boost employment. With government and private support, PTDF will succeed”, Edwin added, and also expressed the readiness of the Dangote Group to support the Abuja-based organisation.
The PTDF expressed excitement at the prospect of Nigeria having a new refinery and not just that but also the largest. They saluted the entrepreneurial spirit of the Chairman of the company, Aliko Dangote describing him as God’s sent to help boost Nigeria’s economy.
They disclosed that ten engineers who trained at the PTDF academy are part of the workforce currently engaged at the refinery.
