NIGERIA’S — The Honorable Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, has pledged support of the Federal Government towards ensuring the completion of the historic 650,000 BPD, Dangote Petroleum Refinery.
The minister gave the government’s pledge during an official visit to the Petrochemical complex located at the Lekki Free Trade Zone in Lagos, Nigeria where he was led on a tour of the refinery by the Group President/Chief Executive, Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote, and the company’s Executive Director, Strategy, Capital Projects and Portfolio Development, Mr. Devakumar Edwin.
Chief Sylva was accompanied by other top government officials including the Chairman, Senate Committee on Petroleum Downstream, Senator Sabo Nakudu; Chairman, Senate Committee on Services/member, Senate Committee, Upstream, Senator Muhammad Musa; and the GMD, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mallam Mele Kyari.
Sylva while expressing his delight at what Dangote Group had done so far, expressed the government’s support saying, “So, we are actually here to assure you, Dangote Group, that as a government, as NNPC, we will support this project as much as we can. You have definitely done very well.”
“As you can see, the whole team is complete, and whatever your concerns are, whatever your problems are, please feel free to let us know, so that we will together find a solution to problems that you might encounter,” Sylvia added.
On his part, Mr Mele Kyari, NNPC GMD said, “we are not competing with Dangote but complimenting each other to boost production capacity.”
“Our objective is the same, to make Nigeria a net exporter of crude. We can’t do this until we have complementary activities between the private sector and government,” Mr. Kyari noted.
In his remarks, Mr Devakumar Edwin,the company’s Group Executive Director, Strategy, Capital Projects and Portfolio Development, said that the asset creates market for 11billion per annum of Nigerian crude and can meet 100 per cent of the Nigerian requirement of all liquid products.
He further revealed that, “The Dangote refinery, which is designed to maximise petrol output, will produce enough to allow for a small surplus of that fuel for export and will also be able to send a large volume of diesel and jet fuel to international markets.”
The Dangote Petroleum Refinery which is going to be Africa’s largest oil refinery has plans to deliver its fuels to Nigerian consumers via roads and seaports and is expected to effectively replace all of Nigeria’s fuel imports once fully operational.