Nigeria’s giant new Dangote oil refinery will start processing crude in the third quarter of this year.
Mechanical work on the refinery is complete and “hopefully before the end of third quarter we should be in the market,” Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, said in a briefing at the plant site in Lagos.
The plant will start with a processing capacity of 540 000 bbl/d, Dangote said. “Full production can start maybe, by the end of the year or beginning of 2023,” he said.
The facility, which will cost an estimated $19-billion to build, has an installed capacity of 650 000 bbl/d Its output will be more than enough to meet Nigeria’s fuel demands and turn Africa’s largest crude producer into an exporter of refined crude.
Dangote, originally a cement tycoon, is worth $20.4-billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.