LAWMAKERS HAIL $18 BN DANGOTE REFINERY, TO DEEPEN IMPLEMENTATION OF LOCAL CONTENT LAW

LAGOS. Nigeria – The Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Local Content, Mr Emmanuel Ekon on Wednesday commended Dangote for the huge investment refinery and petrochemical which geared towards improving the socio-economic development of the nation.

Ekon gave the commendation during the house committee on local content oversight function visit to Dangote refinery and petrochemical in Lagos. Dangote refinery is situated at Lekki Free Trade Zone in Ibeju Lekki, Lagos

He assured lawmakers support to indigenous companies and also create the enabling environment for their businesses to thrive. According to him, lawmakers will work with the management of Dangote to ensure that local content implementation is deepened.

” We commends Dangote multi-billion dollars investments in refinery and his visions for the growth of the country. We urged others to imbibed the giant strive taken by Dangote in the oil and gas industry,”he said.

He said the development was necessary in order to change the outlook of the nation’s oil and gas industry. The lawmaker argued that the local content law in its entirety should be beneficial to all Nigerians if implemented appropriately.

“Local content has the capacity to turn around the fortunes of Nigeria for good. It has the capacity of transforming our economy to any level that we want to, but again the implementation lies with us all. We must realise that Nigeria is our country. We do not have any other country to call our own. Local content implementation is something every Nigerian must vigorously pursue. If it works, it will be good for all of us; it will be good for our children and even the yet unborn,” he said.

Mr Babajide Soyode, Technical Consultant to Alhaji Aliko Dangote said that the Dangote Refinery would save the country over 12 billion dollars annually through import substitution.

According to him, the project will add value to the economy as all the projects will be creating about 4,000 direct and 145,000 indirect jobs. Soyode lauded the resolve of the lawmakers efforts towards supporting indigenous companies to strive in Nigeria.

He said that Dangote was committed to local content development, adding that the management of Dangote will ensure full implementation of the act

‘‘As you are aware, we are currently building the world’s largest single line Refinery, Petrochemical Complex and the world’s second largest Urea Fertiliser plant.

” The refinery will have the capacity to refine 650,000 barrels of crude oil per day while the petrochemical plant will produce 780 KTPA Polypropylene, 500 KTPA of Polyethylene while the fertiliser project will produce 3.0 million metric tonnes per annum of Urea.”

Soyode said that the company would also build the largest sub-sea pipeline infrastructure in any country in the world, with a length of 1,100km, to handle three billion SCF of gas per day. The plant, according to him, will generate over 100,000 employment opportunities and revive over 11,000 filling stations that had been shut due to shortage of products.

He said that the refinery would lower the price of petrol products in Nigeria and save some costs incurred in importation. He urged the Federal Government to pursue the diversification programme, to wean Nigeria from heavy reliance on crude oil export.

According to him, the best way to diversify the economy was through agriculture and “our fertiliser plant is in line with that goal. By the time we finish out gas pipeline, it can generate about 12,000mw and we can export gas to other African countries. We would have the capacity to store four billion litres of products and can load 2,680 trucks per day.”

“This is the single largest refinery in the world. The petrochemical that we have is 13 times bigger than the Eleme Petrochemical built by the government,” soyode said.