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The completion of Dangote’s refinery, petrochemicals and fertiliser projects will make the Federal Government to start sourcing foreign exchange from the billionaire businessman, Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, has said.
Emefiele said this after more than four hours of touring the ongoing projects sites in the Ibeju-Lekki area of Lagos over the weekend.
He had toured the sites in company with the President/CE of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote; Deputy Governor of the CBN, Aishah Ahmad; Group Managing Director, Dangote Industries Limited, Mr. Olakunle Alake; Group Executive Director of Dangote Industries, Mr. Devakumar Edwin; and the Managing Director of Guaranty Trust Bank, Mr. Segun Agbaje.
“I am sure by that time, the CBN will be begging Dangote to sell its dollars to the bank,” Emefiele said as he based his comment on the huge forex earnings that are expected to accrue from the export of the petrochemical and fertilizer products when the plant begins operations in 2020 and may this year respectively.
Emefiele also noted that the refinery and fertilizer projects would help Nigeria to create thousands of Jobs and check importation of fuel by the federal government, thereby saving government about 55 to 60 per cent forex currently being spent on fuel and food imports.
He noted that the completion of the refinery would make Nigeria self-sufficient in the production of refined products and also make the country to be among the league of exporters of petroleum products.
President, Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, said the project would definitely transform the Nigerian economy.
“By the time we finish our fertilizer plant, Nigeria will be the largest exporter of fertilizer in Africa. We will also be the largest exporter of petrochemicals and the largest exporter of petroleum products in the whole of Africa. This is a major transformation,” said Dangote.
He said the three billion Standard Cubic Feet gas pipeline and other Dangote Projects are geared towards Nigeria’s economic transformation and commended CBN for its moral support to the refinery project.
“There are lots going on in Nigeria. We want the CBN to support us like what it did in cement sector, which made Nigeria not only self-sufficient in the production of cement, but it became an exporter of the product. Today, Nigeria will not even import cement because we no longer have capacity for importation of cement,” he added.
Group Executive Director at Dangote Industries Limited, Devakumar Edwin, disclosed that the company’s target is for a significant portion of Nigeria’s crude oil production to be refined domestically, thereby creating jobs within Nigeria and bringing a halt to the current importation of refined petroleum product.
“It will be well diversified and able to process Nigerian crude, African crude and crude from other parts of the world. In terms of evacuation routes, two crude oil single point mooring (SPM) buoys and three multi-product SPMs will be located within the Atlantic Ocean to transfer crude oil to a calling tanker,’ said Edwin.
