DANGOTE TRAINS 150 INDIGENOUS ENGINEERS ON REFINING OPERATIONS

LAGOS, Nigeria – The management of Dangote Oil Refinery Company (DORC), on Monday said that no fewer than 150 indigenous engineers have been trained in refinery operations in preparation for the take-off of its 650,000 barrels per day refinery and Petrochemical plants.

Speaking to journalists during the presentation of a batch of 22 engineers from Mumbai, India, Mr Mohan Kumar, Director, Human Capital Management and Project Support of DORC said that a total of 150 fresh engineers have been trained to manage the operations of the refinery which is under construction.

Kumar said that the young engineers were trained at Bharat Petroleum Corporation limited in India, adding that the trained engineers had gathered fundamental practical knowledge about refinery. According to him, these engineers were recruited and trained to witness the building of the refinery from scratch. They spent two months in classroom training and three months on the job training.

They were trained in Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited by experts who have had over 45 years experience in refinery operations. The director said that the training becomes imperative due to the commitment of the Dangote Group to promote local content by developing indigenous capacity by which the engineers will also transfer the skills acquired to other Nigerians when the refinery takes off.

“As part of plans to be a leading company in petroleum refining and petrochemicals, Dangote Oil Refinery Company (DORC), has trained 150 employees in the art of petroleum refining and petrochemicals.

“The 22 engineers arrived from Bharat Petroleum Corporation, Mumbai in India where the last set of the 150 employees trained in various areas of petroleum and petrochemical refining. Kumar said the decision of the management of Dangote to send the young graduates on a five months course to India was to equip the refinery with young Nigerians with the requisite skill to man all areas of refinery operations.

He, however, emphasized that additional 600 engineers will be sent for training before end of April. According to him, the refinery will produce 780 KTPA Polypropylene, 500 KTPA of Polyethylene while fertiliser project will produce 3.0 million metric tons per annum of Urea.

“The refinery will also have the largest sub-sea pipeline infrastructure in the world with capacity to handle three billion cubic metres of oil annually. It will be recalled that Dangote refinery is expected to save Nigeria $12billion annual import substitution, create 4,000 direct jobs and crash prices of petroleum products after completion.

The project is located in Lekki Free Trade Zone on a vast land mass of 2,200 hectares, an area eight times bigger than the entire Victoria Island in Lagos.