The completion of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals in Lagos State is remarkable one.
President Muhammadu Buhari will on Monday commission the plant which is arguably Africa’s biggest oil refinery and the worlds biggest simple-train facility.
There is no doubt that this venture will create more employment opportunities for Nigeria’s teeming population.
Beyond this, here are 21 facts about the refinery that everyone interested should know.
1. It is located in Ibeju, Lagos, Covering a land area of approximately 2,635 hectares.
2. World’s Largest Single-Train 650,000 barrels per day Petroleum Refinery with 900 KTPA Polypropylene Plant.
3. The Refinery is powered by a 435 MW Power Plant.
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4. At full capacity, it can meet 100% of the Nigerian requirement of all refined products and also have surplus for export.
5. Designed for 100% Nigerian Crude with flexibility to process other crudes.
6. Self-sufficient marine facility with ability for freight optimisation. Largest single order of 5 SPMs anywhere in the world.
7. Diesel & 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. About 65 million cubic metres of sand dredged, costing approximately €300 million, using the world’s largest dredgers.
12. Over 1,200 units of various equipment were bought to enhance the local capacity for site works.
13. Dangote Group bought 332 cranes to build up equipment installation capacity.
14. Also built is the world’s largest granite quarry to supply coarse aggregate, stone column material, stone base, stone dust & material for break water (10 million tonnes per year production capacity).
15. In a bid to bring over dimensional cargoes close to the site directly, Dangote Group had to developed a port and constructed two quays with a load bearing capacity of 25 tonnes/sq metre.
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.
17. The port will have 6 quays, including a roll-on/roll-off quay.
18. In the course of the civil works, 700 piles were drilled on some days, with total number of piles up to 250,000.
19. It has 177 tanks of 4.742 billion litres capacity
20. 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.
21. Training of 900 young engineers in refinery operations abroad. Mechanical Engineers trained in the GE University in Italy. Process engineers trained by Honeywell/UOP for six months.
Meanwhile, everyone, it seems, looks forward to the production of Petroleum products from the plant after this symbolic activity.
But, it will not happen.(unfortunately)!
The ongoing technical commissioning of process has not gotten anywhere close to point of introducing any raw hydrocarbon into the plant, let alone delivering Petroleum products.