Chinwendu Obienyi
Dangote Refinery would be ready by the middle of next year, its Group Executive Director, Projects and Portfolio Management, Edwin Devakumar, revealed in Lagos, yesterday.
This is even as he debunked reports which said Nigerian workers were killed during a demonstration on Tuesday over pay issues outside the factory site.
“Looking exclusively at construction, we have arrived at 60 per cent, but overall, we are at 80 per cent. The reason is because we had the impact of the COVID-19 because many of the countries where our equipments were being manufactured were affected and so we hope to complete everything and make it fit or ready by middle of next year and then start the commissioning process which will take up to three – four months because it is a huge refinery. So by last quarter next year, we should have our products coming into the market,” he said.
On whether the refinery would have an impact on the price of fuel, he noted that this was subject to the basic principle of demand and supply.
“Where the demand exceeds the supply, the prices go up and when supply exceeds demand, the prices will come down,” he said.
Devakumar refuted reports stating that a worker was shot and killed by policemen while protesting at the refinery on Tuesday.
According to him, the protesters were not direct employees of Dangote Refinery, but subcontractors locked in a pay dispute with their employer. He said the company had stepped in to resolve the dispute.
“It is very unfair and malicious of some online media reports making rounds that we ordered policemen to shoot. This is very false and not true,” he said.
Devakumar said the $2 billion granulated urea fertiliser plant located at Ibeju Lekki, Lagos would begin operation before the end of December.
Group Head, Corporate Communications, Dangote Group, Anthony Chiejina, said pre-testing had already been done and the delay in starting operations was due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chief Executive Officer, Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, had in February projected that the plant would begin operations in July.
He said the project would be the largest fertiliser plant in the world with its three million tonnes per annum capacity.
He said this would make Nigeria the only urea exporting country in Sub-Saharan Africa, adding that the fertiliser and petrochemicals plants were capable of generating $2.5 billion annually.
According to him, the amount was almost 10 per cent of what Nigeria was getting from home remittances, which is one of the highest in the world.