The Dangote petroleum refinery, a prestigious undertaking that is anticipated to spark the change of Nigeria’s energy industry, has been officially opened by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Presidents of African nations, business titans, and bigwigs flocked to see the $19 billion complex that Buhari opened on Monday in Lagos, the continent’s commercial hub. The facility is expected to change crude oil refining in Africa.
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The historic opening comes ten years after Aliko Dangote, the wealthiest businessman in Africa, unveiled plans for the refinery in September 2013 after securing financing for the project worth roughly $3.3 billion.
Dangote, in his address, stated that the first product of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals “will be in the market before the end of July, beginning of August this year”.
He made this call while giving the welcome address at the inauguration of the 650,000 bpd refinery in Lagos State on Monday.
“Beyond today’s ceremony, our first goal is to ramp up production of the various products to ensure that within this year, we’re able to fully satisfy our nation’s demand for higher quality products,” he said.
According to him, the accomplishment is to enable Nigeria to eliminate what he described as the tragedy of import dependency and stop — “once and for all” — toxic, substandard petroleum products from being dumped in Nigeria’s market.
