Dangote Industries Ltd’s CEO Aliko Dangote has said the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and the fertiliser plant would be listed in the capital market by the first quarter of 2025. Mr Dangote announced this on Sunday in Lagos at a media parley and guided tour of the refinery and fertiliser plant by media executives. He said the conglomerate had invested $20 billion in the refinery and $2.5 billion in the fertiliser plant. He described the completion of the refinery as another milestone for Dangote Industries Ltd.
“It is the largest single train refinery in the world with 650,000 barrels per day refining capacity. It marks the attainment of self-sufficiency in domestic refining of petroleum products and provides excess capacity in refined products which will go for the export market,’’ Mr Dangote said. He noted that Dangote Industries Ltd. wanted to ensure that apart from domestic sales of its products, it would export the excess. On funding, he said that the federal government had contributed 7.2 per cent of the total shares of the refinery. He mentioned that the refinery had brought the diesel price below N1,100 per litre for three consecutive times. Mr Dangote noted that it was projected that the exportation of cement alone would fetch the conglomerate 325 million dollars annually. He said plans were also underway to add nine million tonnes of capacity to the cement industry by Dangote Cement Plc.
He pointed out that the conglomerate was the only cement company in Africa that used robots. Mr Dangote advised Nigerians not just to acquire and store wealth but to invest in the country to encourage foreign investors to do the same. He, however, advised that Nigerian businesspeople should not be import-dependent to get the economy on a more sound footing. According to him, import dependency will impoverish the nation and turn the nation into a dumping ground. “It is better to manufacture and grow the economy. If we allow imports so much, we may not be able to compete with other nations,’’ Mr Dangote said. (NAN)
