BENJAMIN OMOIKE
With the completion of a landfall point at the site of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemical firm, the conglomerate says it is ready to decongest Nigerian roads of petroleum products-laden trucks.
Mr Devakumar Edwin, the Executive Director, Strategy Capital Projects and Portfolio Development, Dangote Group, disclosed this on Sunday when he conducted the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, round the refinery.
The minister, who led a team of journalists on the tour, was also conducted round the newly inaugurated Dangote Fertiliser Plant, Africa largest granulated urea fertiliser complex.
Edwin said the landfall point dredged in the Atlantic Ocean would allow ships loading crude oil to the refinery to berth and discharge for production.
He added that refined products from the refinery, including petrol, kerosene, diesel and aviation fuel, would also be loaded in ships at the landfall point for distribution to Warri, Port-Harcourt, Calabar and other Southern states.
Edwin said it would curtail the outdated and risky method of transporting petroleum products by tankers on roads to long distances.
Specifically, he said the dispatch facilities by marine for refined products from the refinery is 75 per cent while there were also available facilities for dispatch by roads .
According to him, the refinery has a total tanker loading facility of 2,900 for dispatch by road to areas that could not be delivered by marine facilities.
He also disclosed that the refinery has 20 crude storage tanks, each with a capacity of 120 million litres, totalling 2.4 billion litres storage capacity.
Edwin also disclosed that with the average of less than 400,000 litres of petroleum products needed in the country per day, 60 per cent of the production in the refinery would be available for local consumption while the remaining would be for export.
He said the end-of-the-year deadline for the inauguration and full take off of the single largest refinery in the world with 650,000 barrels per day capacity was sacrosanct.
For his part, the minister said when the refinery fully comes on stream it would be a game changer for the challenges of energy and unemployment, among other issues bisecting the country.
He thanked the management of Dangote Group for their patriotism in locating the refinery and fertiliser plant in the country.
