The Dangote effect

The Dangote Group founded by billionaire, Aliko Dangote in 1978, has contributed to the ongoing renaissance in Nigeria, through its massive investments in the economy. The Group recently made a foray into the oil and gas sector, and is currently building what has been described as the largest refinery, petrochemical and fertiliser complex in Africa.

By

The refinery will have the capacity to refine 400,000 barrels of crude oil per day, while the petrochemical plant will produce 600,000 MTPY of polypropylene. The fertiliser plant has a capacity of 2.8m metric tonnes. The estimated cost of these projects currently under construction in Lagos, the country’s commercial capital, is $9bn. The $9bn project is being financed by $3bn equity and $6bn loan capital.

A consortium of 12 local and foreign banks are backing the project, which the company says will create up to 9,500 direct and 25,000 indirect jobs on its completion in 2016. It is expected that the refinery and petrochemical complex will constitute about 45% of the Group revenues when fully operational.

Standard Chartered Bank is the global coordinator, while Guaranty Trust Bank is the local coordinator of the first facility. The refinery will reduce the nation’s dependence on imports of refined crude oil by about 50%.

At the loan agreement signing ceremony in the nation’s capital, Abuja, on 4th September 2013, Dangote said: “Our massive expansion in the last five years coincided with the tenure of this administration and has been due mainly to the formulation and implementation of progressive policies of this government – the cement backward-integration policy has seen Nigeria achieve self-sufficiency in cement production.

“It is on record that this administration has helped create and maintain the enabling environment that has encouraged us to invest over $6bn in the Nigeria cement manufacturing industry in the last seven years.”

Want to continue reading? Subscribe today.

You've read all your free articles for this month! Subscribe now to enjoy full access to our content.

Digital Monthly

£8.00 / month

Receive full unlimited access to our articles, opinions, podcasts and more.

Digital Yearly

£70.00 / year

Our best value offer - save £26 and gain access to all of our digital content for an entire year!