Africa’s richest man and Chairman of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote has assured that following laid down plans of the Dangote Refinery, Nigeria as a nation will have no need to import gasoline from next month.
Dangote also said his refinery has capacity to supply West Africa’s petrol and diesel needs, and the continent’s aviation fuel demand.
The entrepreneur made this announcement at Africa CEO Forum Annual Summit in Kigali on Friday, while expressing optimism in the transformation of Africa’s energy landscape.
“Right now, Nigeria has no cause to import anything apart from gasoline and by sometime in June, within the next four or five weeks, Nigeria shouldn’t import anything like gasoline; not one drop of litre.”
He also outlined progresses made by the oil company to ensure that Africa as a continent becomes self-sufficient when it comes to the energy sector.
“We have enough gasoline to give to at least the entire West Africa, diesel to give to West Africa and Central Africa. We have enough aviation fuel to give to the entire continent and also export some to Brazil and Mexico.
“Today, our polypropylene and our polyethylene will meet the entire demand of Africa today and we are doing base oil, which is like engine oil, we are doing linear benzyl, which is raw material to produce detergent. We have 1.4 billion people in population, nobody is producing that in Africa.
“So, all the raw materials for our detergents are imported. We are producing that raw material to make Africa self-sufficient.
“As I said, give us three or a maximum of four years and Africa will not, I repeat, not import any more fertilizer from anywhere. We will make Africa self-sufficient in both potash, phosphate, and urea, we are at three million tonnes and in the next twenty months, we will be at six million tonnes of urea which is the entire capacity of Egypt. We are getting there.”
Dangote also went further to outline the achievements of the company since the commissioning of the refinery in February.
