Africa’s largest oil refinery will not be finished until the end of 2020 due to problems importing steel and other equipment.
“We will be able to complete the (refinery) project by the end of next year – mechanical completion,” said Dangote Group Executive Director Devakumar Edwin, who oversees the project.
The company expects fuel production within two months of completion of the refinery, which could transform Africa’s biggest crude producer from a fuel importer into a net exporter, upending global trade patterns.
Billionaire Aliko Dangote, who built his fortune on cement, first announced a smaller refinery in 2013, to be finished in 2016. Dangote then moved the site to Lekki, in Lagos, upgraded the size and said production would start in early 2020.
The tanks of the refinery will be connected to five “single point mooring buoys” (SPMs), which will allow the refinery complex to pump crude straight into tanks from large ships at sea and pump products back out onto boats of any size.
The SPMs will be the primary method of supplying oil products from the refinery, Surace said, adding that the team were considering using the tanks as training or as a depot before the refinery’s production starts.
According to Edwin during an interview with the newsmen, team is in talks with NNPC, two other international oil companies and two large oil traders, all of whom are interested in supplying crude and buying products. The crude unit for the refinery, which set sail from China July, last month, would arrive by the end of October.
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