Delay in the importation of steel and other equipment has forced the management of Dangote Refinery to announce the end of year 2020 as the new completion date for the 650,000 barrels per day (bpd) integrated refinery and petrochemical project which is currently underway in the Ibeju-Lekki area of Lagos State.
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Devakumar Edwin, Dangote Group executive director, said despite the delays at the congested Apapa and Tin Can Island Ports in Lagos, the company could start using the refinery’s tank farms as a depot to warm up operations.
According to Edwin, 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.
Speaking on the modus operandi of the tank farm, Giuseppe Surace, chief operations officer, Dangote Refinery, said the tanks would be connected to five single-point mooring buoys (SPMs), which would allow the refinery complex to pump crude straight into tanks from large ships at sea and pump products back out onto boats of any size.
A single-point mooring (SPM) is a floating buoy/jetty anchored offshore to allow handling of liquid cargo such as petroleum products for tanker ships. It is mainly used in areas where a dedicated facility for loading or unloading liquid cargo is not available.
The SPMs would be the primary method of supplying oil products from the refinery, Surace said, adding that the team was considering using the tanks as training or as a depot before the refinery’s production starts.
“The team is in talks with NNPC, two other international oil companies and two large oil traders, all of whom are interested in supplying crude and buying products,” he said.
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According to Surace, the crude unit for the refinery, which set sail from China last month, would arrive by the end of October, noting that the trains at a fertiliser plant on the same site would start up by the end of this year.
OLUFIKAYO OWOEYE
