On May 22, 2023, President Muhammadu Buhari will be in Lagos to commission the Dangote Refinery.
This announcement was made in a tweet by the special assistant to the president on digital communications, Bashir Ahmad.
Ahmad said; “Efforts by the Federal Government to make Nigeria self-sufficient in local refining of crude oil to save the scarce foreign exchange used in the importation of petroleum products have received a boost as the 650,000 barrels per day Dangote Refinery, the world’s largest single-train refinery, is set for inauguration on May 22nd, 2023, by President Muhammadu Buhari.”
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The integrated refinery and petrochemical project located in the Lekki free trade zone area of Lagos state cost an estimated $19 billion to build and is expected to generate 9,500 direct and 25,000 indirect jobs. It is Africa’s biggest oil refinery and the world’s biggest single-train facility.
Its output is expected to be more than enough to meet Nigeria’s fuel demands and turn Africa’s largest crude producer into an exporter of refined crude.
It would be recalled that in 2022, the Chairman of Dangote Group and Africa’s richest person, Aliko Dangote insisted his oil refinery would be commissioned before the end of Buhari’s tenure.
Meanwhile, in June 2021, the Group Managing Director, Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Mele Kyari, confirmed that the federal government would acquire a 20 percent equity stake in the Dangote Refinery.
Two months later, the federal executive council (FEC) approved the sum of $2.76 billion for the acquisition of a 20 percent minority equity stake in the refinery.
