Dangote: Another Commendable Landmark

The Dangote Industries Limited made history last Wednesday in Abuja when its Chairman, Alhaji Aliko Dangote signed a $3.3 billion (N512 billion) loan agreement with representatives of a consortium of 12 banks led by GT Bank and Standard Chartered Bank for the establishment of a proposed Africa’s biggest private refinery complex.
The loan is said to be part of a $9 billion (N1.4 trillion) capital mix required by the Dangote Group to execute a 400,000 barrels-per-day refinery, petrochemical and fertiliser project at the Olokola Liquefied Natural Gas (OKLNG) Free Trade Zone, located between Ogun and Ondo States in Nigeria’s South West.
Even as crude is being discovered in more African countries, Nigeria remains the largest producer of the resource in the continent and must find very practical and profitable ways of utilising this resource that has continued to account for 70 percent of the budget and about 90 percent of Nigeria’s foreign earnings.
This enviable profile of the sector has hardly improved the living standard of the average Nigerian. Most worrisome is the inability of the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) operated four refineries to as little as satisfy local market, with the 445,000 barrels of crude oil allocated to them daily.
Even the widely hailed promise of getting the original builders of these refineries to undertake a Turn-Around Maintenance (TAM) that would restore the ailing plants back to 90 per cent operational capacity has now become a mere ministerial refrain at every major oil and gas conference.
Equally disturbing is the report that the Federal Government spends about N1.3 trillion annually (an equivalent of 22 per cent of its budget) to subsidise the cost of importing refined petroleum products into the country, at a time when neighbouring Niger Republic is said to have built a world-class oil refinery near the Nigerian border ostensibly to take advantage of developments in Nigeria.
According to Dangote, the proposed mega refinery is designed to produce high grade petrol, diesel, aviation fuel, household kerosene and slurry – a raw material for producing carbon black. He hopes to reduce Nigeria’s importation of petroleum products by 50 per cent in 2016 when the plant will have commenced full operation.
The resolve of Dangote to undertake the building of a refinery, a venture which many investors had avoided, and for good reason, calls for commendation. To have come up with an integrated system to make the sector viable in spite of some seemingly impossible local conditions clearly shows why Dangote is considered to be the richest African.
We are grateful that Dangote is using his wealth, business experience and courage to open up the Nigerian economy in ways never thought possible. Until now, a lot of local investors were not able to utilise their licences to build and operate refineries because of the refusal of Nigerians to allow for the complete removal of subsidy on petroleum products.
Clearly, the same reason would have sufficed to deter Dangote but his ability to come up with the petrochemical and fertiliser plants to make up for the deficiency in the refinery component is very ingenious and worthy of emulation.
Dangote has made an unprecedented input in the economic development of Nigeria for which the award of the highest honour of this country stands justified. His landmark breakthroughs in the manufacturing of cement, sugar, flour, fruit juice and other household goods, in addition to the generation of employment for Nigerians, are unrivalled.
Dangote had, over the years, demonstrated the knack for identifying business opportunities at the very same places where many other Nigerian and foreign investors see only the inhibitions provided by lack of basic infrastructure, inadequate public power supply, security challenges, high cost of borrowing and the misapplication of subsidy.
As Dangote kick-starts the refinery project, The Tide hopes that the Nigerian government will give him all the support he would need to make it a success. Even so, we expect that as Dangote plans to curb fuel import by half in 2016, other operators in the sector should join forces and replicate the Dangote model in the Niger Delta area and help put an end to fuel importation and massive unemployment.