Dangote Industries Limited has acquired 4,000 more construction machines for its refinery expansion in Lekki, Lagos. The move brings its total equipment fleet to 6,500 machines. Group Vice President, Oil and Gas and Fertiliser, Devakumar Edwin, disclosed this during a refinery tour. He said the expansion will raise the refinery’s capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day.
The company first bought 2,563 machines after Julius Berger and other contractors raised capacity concerns. Edwin said Dangote wanted to avoid the huge cost of bringing foreign contractors into Nigeria.
“My president said, very well, let’s go and buy all the construction equipment,” he said.
The company now has 330 cranes, including equipment bought for the expansion.
Meanwhile, Dangote has also built major infrastructure around the refinery. This includes 82 concrete batching plants and 203 transit mixers. It also has a private port, granite quarry and gas plants. Edwin said the existing facilities will support the expansion and cut both costs and construction time. He added that the refinery now processes about 700,000 barrels daily.
The expansion will also rely on Dangote Projects Limited for engineering and project management. Edwin said foreign contractors wanted about 12.5 per cent of the estimated $19.5 billion project cost. That would have meant roughly $2.5 billion in fees.
“I said, it’s madness to go and give two and a half billion dollars to a contractor,” he said.
Dangote’s expansion plans could eventually push its refining capacity to 2.1 million barrels daily.
