Excitement as Emefiele, Bank Executives tour Dangote Refinery, Fertiliser Plant, which is to sell fertilizer on Monday

05 Jun Excitement as Emefiele, Bank Executives tour Dangote Refinery, Fertiliser Plant, which is to sell fertilizer on Monday

Dangote Industries Limited has said its three million metric tonnes granulated urea fertiliser plant is now completed and its products will flood the Nigerian market from Monday.

Alhaji Aliko Dangote, Chairman, Dangote Group, made the disclosure on Friday, as the Central Bank Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, undertook a final tour of the facility in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos.

With Emefiele on the facility tour were chief executive officers of First Bank Nigeria Limited, Access Bank Plc, Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, United Bank for Africa and Zenith Bank Plc.

In his briefing Dangote said, the three million metric tonnes of Urea is certified and licensed by all regulatory authorities in Nigeria.

“We have gotten all licenses from the National Security Adviser, the Ministry of Agriculture, Standard Organisation of Nigeria, NAFDAC and all other authorities.

“So, our Urea will be in the market from Monday, and by God’s grace, before the end of this month, we will start bringing in dollars from the first line that we have commissioned, ” Dangote said.

He said that the Urea that was inspected was a small percentage of the gas that the country was actually flaring, and it would bring some 1.2billion dollars into the country in terms of foreign exchange.

He thanked Emefiele and the bank chiefs for being there to ensure the success of the plants, noting that the time had come for the country to move away from relying on sale of crude oil.

He urged them to target mostly gas-based industries so the country’s economy could improve and make a lot of dollars.

Emefiele said the Dangote Petroleum Refinery as well as its Fertiliser Plant would save the country $3 billion annually, thereby conserving scarce foreign exchange.

Elaborating, Emefiele said importation of petroleum products alone makes about 25 per cent of the country’s import bill, , adding that when fertiliser, which is another major item being imported in the country, wheat, milk and the rest were added, it would be much more.

“So, 25 per cent of the value of our imports means that a lot of money is being spent on importation.

“Imagine if this refinery comes to life hopefully by the first quarter of next year, where we have other by-products from petrochemicals, we will be saving about $3 billion worth of import annually.”

The CBN Governor who was visibly excited about the level of work at the facility which is expected to commence refining petroleum products before the first quarter of 2022, noted that it would contribute significantly to the growth of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

He said, “Don’t forget that I keep asking what is the contribution of import to our GDP? The contribution of import to GDP is negative and if we can reduce our import by about $3 billion annually, imagine how our GDP will be growing.

“That is the science behind what we are doing. Reduce import and produce things that we can produce locally and consume them locally, thereby promoting solid import substitution.

According to him, “Dangote is ready to now flood the Nigerian market with fertiliser, in this case, urea, and the excess would go for export.

“The fertiliser plant whose product is now ready for sale, is a three million tones urea plant. By the time we add the existing capacity from Indorama, which is 1.5 million metric tones; Notore of maybe about 300 metric tons, in Nigeria we would have close to five million metric tons of urea.

“And Nigeria needs barely one million and even if we want to exaggerate, 1.5 million metric tons of urea. So, we have potential to export at least three million metric tons of urea to different parts of the world. Nigeria now ranks among the leading countries in the production of urea.

“This for me is a story no one would have believed in Nigeria. We also saw the petrochemical and refinery plant. Dangote has also committed that mechanical commissioning would end by the end of this year and we are expecting that the refinery and petrochemical would kick-off by the end of first quarter of next.”

He said the federal government and the CBN had been encouraging the company to see that they commence the production of petroleum products before the first quarter of 2022, “because we badly need this plant to start.”

Asked about reports that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) desires to acquire 20 per cent stake in the refinery, Dangote said: “Not only NNPC that have shown interest, there are other major oil traders that we are talking to. As soon as we complete talking to them we will make it open. It will be very transparent. ‘The major thing is that our partnership with NNPC will help to address the issues of shortages, the issues of paying demurrage and the issues of all these ships hanging around which will now leave and go and find business elsewhere.”

Speaking on behalf of the bankers, Mr Herbert Wigwe, the Group Managing Director of Access Bank Plc, expressed joy for the support they gave to Dangote to create a world-class manufacturing enterprise in Nigeria.

“There was a lot of skepticism along the way as we moved on; can this product be completed, are we sure we have the right financing models and all of that.

“Today, we saw Urea produced, we saw it bagged and we saw it loaded on buses, and by Monday it would be in our markets.

“This, for us, is a very important milestone for Nigeria and Africa,” Wigwe said