No More Importation Of Petrol Once My Refinery Is Ready - Dangote

No More Importation Of Petrol Once My
Refinery Is Ready - Dangote
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Aliko Dangote, president of Dangote
Group, has assured Nigerians that when
his refinery is ready, the country would
no longer need to import petroleum
products.
Speaking at the site of his refinery in Lekki, Dangote said his refinery would
put an end to fertiliser importation in
Nigeria, transforming the country into a
net exporter of refined crude and
fertilizer.
“Today, Nigeria imports 100 percent of its fertilizer, but when we finish,
Nigeria will be the largest exporter of
Urea and Ammonia in Africa,” Dangote
said.
“The refinery is the largest single line in
Africa and it will meet our total domestic requirement and save foreign
exchange. “Thirty-eight per cent of
CBN’s foreign exchange is spent on
importation of petroleum products. But
we can serve the whole West African
market.” Dangote said he had been working with
the government and the central bank of
Nigeria (CBN) in diversifying the
economy.
“We are going to serve the whole
domestic market in the next 10 years and also export. We have actually been
doing this for a very long time to
diversify the economy.
“The government will lay down the
policies. The CBN will assist in terms of
long-term funding through the banks and even directly now because they
have actually helped us quite a lot. That
is what we are now trying to do.”
Godwin Emefiele, the CBN governor,
who visited the Dangote free trade
zone, said the CBN would provide the needed foreign exchange for the
refinery, adding that the refinery, upon
completion, would generate $6 billion
dollars in foreign exchange for Nigeria.
“Imagine what would happen to the
savings in foreign exchange by the time the fertilizer plant is completed in 2017
and by the time the refinery and
petrochemical plant is completed
during the early part of 2018. “We
expect that by the time these projects
are completed, they will not only meet the needs of our domestic
requirements – by the time they are
completed, he (Dangote) will be
exporting these products to the point
where he will be selling foreign
exchange to Nigerians and CBN to the tune of almost $6 billion yearly.
“That is the kind of project we think we
should support and we think that we
need to encourage more Nigerians to
begin to think like Aliko Dangote.”
The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), in its world
oil outlook for 2015 said Dangote is
responsible for nearly 50 percent of
refinery projects in Africa for the next
five years. The refinery is expected to
cost about N2.8 trillion and refine about 650,000 barrels of crude oil per day.