This is some good news for Nigerians as one of the most influential individuals in Africa and Africa’s entepreneurial mogul, Aliko Dangote is set to embark on the realisation of his N2.8 trillion refinery project.
According to the president of Dangote Group, while he was speaking at the site of the refinery at Lekki, there is an assurance of Nigeria making a huge improvement in the aspects of petroleum and fertiliser exportation, with the refinery of about 650,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
In his words; “Today, Nigeria imports 100 percent of its fertilizer, but when we finish, Nigeria will be the largest exporter of Urea and Ammonia in Africa,” Dangote said.
“The refinery is the largest single line in Africa and it will meet our total domestic requirement and save foreign exchange.”
“Thirty-eight per cent of CBN’s foreign exchange is spent on importation of petroleum products. But we can serve the whole West African market.”
“We are going to serve the whole domestic market in the next 10 years and also export. We have actually been doing this for a very long time to diversify the economy”.
“The government will lay down the policies. The CBN will assist in terms of long-term funding through the banks and even directly now because they have actually helped us quite a lot. That is what we are now trying to do.”
Reacting to the productive development, the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele said; “Imagine what would happen to the savings in foreign exchange by the time the fertilizer plant is completed in 2017 and by the time the refinery and petrochemical plant is completed during the early part of 2018″.
“We expect that by the time these projects are completed, they will not only meet the needs of our domestic requirements – by the time they are completed, he (Dangote) will be exporting these products to the point where he will be selling foreign exchange to Nigerians and CBN to the tune of almost $6 billion yearly.”
“That is the kind of project we think we should support and we think that we need to encourage more Nigerians to begin to think like Aliko Dangote.”