The special assistant to the president on digital communications, Ahmad posted a message saying, “Efforts by the Federal Government to make Nigeria self-sufficient in local refining of crude oil to save the scarce foreign exchange used in the importation of petroleum products have received a boost as the 650,000 barrels per day Dangote Refinery, the world’s largest single-train refinery, is set for inauguration on May 22nd, 2023, by President Muhammadu Buhari.”
An official invitation circulating online stated, “Save the date, Mon, May 22, 2023, for the official commissioning of Dangote Oil Refinery and Petrochemicals FZE.”
The Dangote Refinery complex is located in the Free Zone area of Lagos, Nigeria. Considered to be Africa's largest refinery, it also boasts being the world's biggest single-train facility.
A single-train refinery uses an integrated distillation unit or one crude distillation unit to refine crude oil into various petroleum products, rather than using multiple units like most big refineries do.
Dangote announced in late 2013 that his conglomerate had struck a deal with local and foreign banks to borrow $3.3bn for the construction of a new oil refinery in Nigeria.
The refinery was initially expected to start production in 2016 but plans to expand its capacity and a change of location to a 2,500-hectare site in Ibeju Lekki on the outskirts of Lagos saw the deadline for completion of construction shifted to late 2019, with the commencement of production expected in 2020.
In August, it was reported that the construction of the stadium would be delayed further because steel and other equipment had not been imported as planned.
The President of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, had in January 2022, revealed that its refinery subsidiary would commence processing of crude oil in the third quarter of 2022 but it failed to take off.
In March, a report by S&P Global said that the delayed commencement of the Dangote refinery meant the continued importation of about 700,000 bpd of diesel in the Sub-Saharan Africa region.
Some experts believe that the facility will meet 100 per cent of the Nigerian requirement of all refined products and also have a surplus of each of the products for export.
