By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Aliko Dangote has got a N75 billion helping hand from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to finance his oil refinery which aims to meet local demand and export surplus when it comes on stream in 2020.
CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele disclosed that Dangote has invested about 50 per cent of the $9 billion required for the refinery as equity and the balance would come as loans from local and foreign lenders.
The CBN will provide N75 billion as a loan.
The refinery in Lekki, Lagos is planned to have capacity of 650,000 barrels a day. It will be the biggest refinery of its type in the world.
Dangote wants to produce enough petrol and kerosene to meet the demand of all of Nigeria’s 200 million population and have some left over for export.
A separate fertiliser plant will produce 3m tonnes a year of urea, enough to meet the current needs of farmers nationwide, and a petrochemicals factory will make a combined 1.3m t/y of polyethylene and polypropylene.
The refinery will absorb 30 per cent of Nigeria’s daily oil production and shift the curve of its import-export.
Already, the Dangote Group dominates Nigeria’s cement industry, and much of that of Africa.
When the refinery begins production early next year, it will solve many structural problems that have beset Nigeria since it discovered huge quantities of oil 50 years ago.
Nigeria exports crude and imports refined products subsidised by the government, and that produces a raft of dealers and middlemen who make easy fortunes out of the arbitrage opportunities.
Dangote says his refinery will save Nigeria billions of dollars in foreign exchange and remove the pickings that have benefited generations of entrepreneurs diverted from production to speculation.