News Post
Dangote Refinery Crude Distillation column leaves Chinese yard
“On July 29, the world’s largest atmospheric tower built by Sinopec slowly left a wharf in Ningbo. Following the Maritime #SilkRoad, it will travel to #Nigeria and be installed at the world’s biggest single-train facility - Nigeria’s Dangote Refinery,” said Sinopec in a tweet. It will likely take at least a month to reach Lagos.
The 650,000 bpd refinery near Lagos is set to be Africa’s largest, and could transform the country from a fuels importer to a net exporter. “This is a major milestone, but there is still much work to be done, both in terms of sourcing the other units and in terms of interconnection at the site,” Citac analyst Jeremy Parker said of the atmospheric tower shipment.
Billionaire Aliko Dangote, who built his fortune on cement, said last year that he planned to finish building the $12-14 billion refinery in 2019 and to start production in early 2020. Most analysts and observers said the ambitious project would take longer in order to begin pumping out fuels such as diesel and gasoline. Citac expects the refinery to start producing fuels in 2023. Sources told Reuters last year that it was unlikely to start production until at least 2022, two years later than the target date.
Dangote Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Dangote Industries said in February this year that it had so far awarded $368m worth of contracts to 120 local contractors for its refinery and petrochemical project as part of its contribution to the Nigerian content development initiative.
The Group Executive Director, Strategy, Portfolio Development and Capital Projects, DIL, Mr Devakumar Edwin, noted that the refinery would lead to significant skills transfer and technology acquisition opportunities in the country. He said the Dangote refinery could meet Nigeria’s requirement of all liquid products, such as petrol, diesel, kerosene and aviation fuel, and would have a surplus of each of the products for export. He noted that the refinery had been designed to process a variety of light and medium grades of crude and produce extremely clean fuels that could meet the Euro V specification.
Source: Reuters
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