21 facts about Dangote's new oil refinery

Africa’s wealthiest man, Aliko Dangote is expected to commission the world's biggest private oil refinery on May 22, 2023 known as Dangote Integrated Refinery and Petrochemicals Complex.

The multimillion-dollar project which commenced in 2013 will become the largest single-train oil refinery in the world, also making it the largest to be established in Africa and 7th largest oil refinery in the world.

The Integrated Refinery and Petrochemicals Complex is located in the Ibeju-Lekki area of Lagos-Nigeria and has the capacity to process about 650,000 barrels per day of crude oil.

It is said that about $25 billion was earmarked for the construction and establishment of the oil refinery.

Here are some 21 facts about the oil refinery

1. It is located in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, covering a land area of approximately 2,635 hectares.

2. The refinery is powered by a 435-megawatt (MW) power plant.

3. The refinery is the world’s largest single train with a capacity of 650,000 barrels per day with a 900 KTPA Polypropylene plant.

4. At full capacity, it can meet 100% of the Nigerian requirement of all refined products and also have surplus for exports.

5. It is designed for 100% Nigerian crude with flexibility to process other crudes.

6. It has self-sufficient marine facility with ability for freight optimization being the largest single order of 5 single-point mooring (SPMs) anywhere in the world.

7. Diesel and gasoline from the refinery will conform to Euro V specifications.

8. The refinery design complies with World Bank, US EPA, European emission norms and Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) emission/effluent norms.

9. It incorporates state-of-the-art technology.

10. It is designed to process large variety of crudes, including many of the African crudes, some of the middle eastern crudes and the US Light Tight Oil.

11. Construction started off after 65 million cubic meters of sand dredged, costing approximately €300 million, using the world’s largest dredgers.

12. Purchased over 1,200 units of various equipment to enhance the local capacity for site works.

13. About 332 cranes were purchased to build up equipment installation capacity.

14. In it is built the world’s largest granite quarry to supply coarse aggregate, stone column material, stone base, stone dust and material for breakwater (10 million tons per year production capacity).

15. It has a developed port and constructed two quays with a load bearing capacity of 25 tons/square meter to bring over dimensional cargoes close to the site directly.

16. Constructed two more quays in the port with a capacity to handle up to Panamax vessels to export, two quays to handle liquid cargoes. The port will have six quays, including a roll on/roll off quay.

17. In the course of the civil works, 700 piles were drilled on some days, with total number of piles up to 250,000.

18. The refinery has 177 tanks of up to 4.742 billion liters capacity.

19. Dangote is one of the few companies in the world executing a Petroleum refinery and a Petrochemical complex directly as an Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contractor.

20. Trained 900 young engineers in refinery operations abroad. Mechanical Engineers were trained in the GE University in Italy. Process Engineers were trained by Honeywell/Universal Oil Products (UOP) for six months.

21. Once the oil refinery is kick-started, the price of premium motor spirit (Petrol) will crash to 10 Naira per liter.

MA/SARA