Facts to know about Dangote Refinery and how it benefits Nigeria 

With few days to the commissioning of the highly anticipated Dangote petroleum and petrochemical refinery located in Lagos, some facts about the refinery has been revealed.

On May 22, President Muhammadu Buhari will be in Lagos state to commission the refinery.

Aliko Dangote recently said the refinery’s production of critical products like naphtha and polypropylene will stimulate the development of other industries, such as cosmetics, plastics, and textiles. 

The OPEC Secretary General, Haitham Al Ghais has recently said it is important for countries to add value to refineries by integrating petrochemicals. So, it is no longer just about extracting the margin through the complexity of refining crude but also by integrating petrochemicals. This is because there is a growing trend to integrate the petrochemical business with the refinery to realize maximum value.

The facts about the refinery are as follows;

1. It is located in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, covering a land area of approximately 2,635 hectares.
2. The refinery is the world’s largest single train with a capacity of 650,000 barrels per day with a 900 KTPA Polypropylene plant.
3. The refinery is powered by a 435-megawatt (MW) power plant.
4. At full capacity, it can meet 100% of the Nigerian requirement of all refined products and also have surplus for exports.
5. Designed for 100% Nigerian crude with flexibility to process other crudes.
6. Self-sufficient marine facility with ability for freight optimization. Largest single order of 5 single-point mooring (SPMs) anywhere in the world.
7. Diesel and gasoline from the refinery will conform to Euro V specifications.
8. The refinery design complies with World Bank, US EPA, European emission norms and Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) emission/effluent norms.
9. Incorporates state-of-the-art technology.
10. Designed to process large variety of crudes, including many of the African crudes, some of the middle eastern crudes and the US Light Tight Oil.
11. 65 million cubic meters of sand dredged, costing approximately €300 million, using the world’s largest dredgers.
12. Bought over 1,200 units of various equipment to enhance the local capacity for site works.
13. Bought 332 cranes to build up equipment installation capacity.
14. Built the world’s largest granite quarry to supply coarse aggregate, stone column material, stone base, stone dust and material for breakwater (10 million tons per year production capacity).
15. Developed a port and constructed two quays with a load bearing capacity of 25 tons/square meter to bring over dimensional cargoes close to the site directly.
16. Constructed two more quays in the port with a capacity to handle up to Panamax vessels to export, two quays to handle liquid cargoes. The port will have six quays, including a roll on/roll off quay.
17. In the course of the civil works, 700 piles were drilled on some days, with total number of piles up to 250,000.
18. It has 177 tanks of up 4.742 billion liters capacity.
19. Dangote is one of the few companies in the world executing a Petroleum refinery and a Petrochemical complex directly as an Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contractor.
20. Trained 900 young engineers in refinery operations abroad. Mechanical Engineers trained in the GE University in Italy. Process Engineers trained by Honeywell/Universal Oil Products (UOP) for six months.

Dangote Refinery expects its first crude batch in June 2023. This is according to a report by S&P Global Commodity Insights.