Aliko Dangote is a business mogul of some sort, whose middle name is
entrepreneur. He is never dissuaded from entering new businesses despite
the general inclement operating business environment. Given his foray
into many different business terrains and the successes he has recorded
thereof, it would appear he has the uncanny ability to juggle different
balls at the same time and get results.
He has been declared the richest black man on the planet earth, yet his
humility will enthrall you. He remains unaffected by the lofty heights
he has attained in business. His business acumen is unparalleled. Form
the humble beginning, Dangote has nurtured a trading company to a
pan-African conglomerate and a force to be reckoned with in the global
arena using creativity, innovation, style, patience and commitment to
his dream.
Earlier Acquired, Relinquished Kaduna Refinery
He made a bold move to acquire the Kaduna refinery in 2007 along with
one of his friends in response to the government’s call to help
rejuvenate the ailing refinery, which by then had become a drain pipe to
the Federal Government. For one reason or the other, Dangote returned
the refining plant back to government. Since then he had been on the
drawing board deploying his business dexterity on the best way to enter
into the critical oil and gas sector.
The global business community would have been shocked last week when it
was announced that the business mogul was ready to build in his home
country, the biggest petroleum refinery in Africa. This is a feat
thought to be unrealisable given that many who had been licensed to
build refinery years ago failed woefully to commence business, citing
the deregulation policy as a hindrance.
$3 billion Loan Agreement
Those in that school of thought would have then swallowed their pride
when Dangote gathered a consortium of both local and international banks
in Abuja to sign a term loan agreement to the tune of $3 billion to
execute the refining plant project, a fertilizer plant as well as
petrochemical industry. Other African financial institutions are also
expected to bring some facility while the man himself is coming on board
with an amount equaling the total sum being put together by all the
banks. The total investment is $9 billion.
This is a giant stride, the facility itself is historic as it remains
the largest loan facility to any individual by Nigerian banks. What this
says of Dangote is that the banks could vouch for his integrity and
honesty of purpose when it comes to business.
And so Dangote, President/Chief Executive of Dangote Group, made an
audacious foray into a new territory, petrochemical and oil and gas
refinery business. Whatever the myth around the petroleum refinery sub
sector of the oil and gas industry, which made other sectorial
stakeholders see importation of the petroleum products as making a
better investment sense than going into local refining, Dangote has
destroyed the claim and removed the veil when he signed the N528 billion
term loan with the banks to finance the project.
By this singular act, Dangote has proven once again that he is a
value-creating investor in the domestic economy who will risk his money
to stimulate Nigeria’s economy as opposed to other investors with
undiluted appetite for importation as only business option.
Just as we experienced before now in cement industry, where local
demand then far outweighed supply, before Dangote’s intervention
investment to meet up with national consumption demand, government has
consistently cited fuel importation as a major setback for the economy,
therefore at the completion of the refinery and petrochemical, national
supply would have been upped by 100 percent. It would then mean that
Dangote as a patriotic Nigerian investor have helped in closing the
inverse gap created by that national deficiency dwindling local refining
capacity supply and more population demand.
Dangote sought the commercial loan to augment his own contribution in
the same region as the borrowed facility. It gladdens the heart to know
that works had already commenced on the construction of these plants
with the fertilizer plant being cited in Edo and the Petrochemical and
Petrol refining plants situated at OKNLG Free Trade Zone bordering Ogun
and Ondo states.
Dangote revealed that the contract for the refinery and petrochemical
plant had been awarded to UOP, a subsidiary of Honeywell International, a
Fortune 500 company and US-based conglomerate that specialises in
consumer products, engineering services and aerospace systems.
The project manager for the refinery and petrochemical plant is India
Engineers Limited, an Indian government-owned company credited with the
setting up of refineries in India while the contract for the fertilizer
plant had been awarded to oil and gas contractor, Saipem, a subsidiary
of Italy’s Eni, which already has a presence in Nigeria.
Refining Plant Has Overall Capacity to Produce 400,000 bpd, Says Dangote
Giving the details of the project regarding the scope of the project
and the production capacities of the various plants, Dangote indicated
that the Fertilizer Plant is designed with a capacity to produce 2.75
million MTPA of Amonia and Urea; the Refining Plant with overall
capacity 400,000 bpd and the Petrochemical Plant to produce Poly
Propylene to the tune of 600, 000MTPA
The Refining and Petrochemical Plants, he stated further, would be the
largest in Africa and had been designed to produce Euro 5 quality
standard as compared to the Euro 3 currently supplied in the Nigerian
market. On completion, he said the refined products output would be
Gasoline (PMS) of 7.684 million MTPA; Diesel-5.30 million MTPA; Jet
Fuel/Kerosene-3.740 million MTPA; LPG-0.213million MTPA; and Slurry/Fuel
Oil-0.625million MTPA.
There is no doubt that the projects, which will be the single largest
individual investment since the commencement of the democratic
government in Nigeria. Dangote said at the agreement signing in Abuja:
“This is our contribution to the present government’s economic
transformation agenda and it forms part of our expansion initiatives of
this Group, which size has in the last five years increased ten-fold to a
market capitalization of $22 billion.
“Dangote Group today accounts for over 30% of the total market
capitalization of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). Our massive
expansion in the last five years has coincided with the tenure of this
administration and have been due mainly to the formulation and
implementation of progressive policies of this government like the
cement backward integration policy that has seen Nigeria achieve
self-sufficiency in cement production.
“It is on record that this administration has helped create and
maintain the enabling environment that has encouraged us to invest over
$6 billion in the Nigeria cement manufacturing industry in the last
seven years.
“We are happy to inform you that we are not resting on our oars as we
through this letter want to inform you of our recent decision to make
possible what could.”
The Richest Man in Africa expressed happiness that due to the vastly
improved investor friendly environment in Nigeria, there was a
tremendous response by reputable international finance organisations to
participate in the loan syndication.
However, analysts are of the view that apart from the removal of
bottleneck created by fuel importation and its attendant corruptive
tendencies, the job opportunities would remain unquantifiable as direct
and multiplier effect of jobs to be created would engage over 25, 000
people. Thus, poverty will be reduced again and standard of living of
many shored up.
Besides, the coming on stream of the projects will eliminate fuel
scarcity, kerosene shortage and other problems associated with
availability and affordability of petroleum products in the country. It
means that the days of long queues at the filling stations for petrol
and kerosene are numbered.
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