$17b refinery: AFREXIMBANK promises funding support to Dangote Group

The African Export-Import Bank on Thursday said it would assist the Dangote Group to access foreign exchange and funding for its $14 billion refinery projects.
Dr. Okey Oramah, the President of AFREXIMBANK, gave the assurance during a tour of board members to the refinery, which is projected to refine 650,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
The tour of the facility was held at its location within the Lekki Free Trade Zone in Lagos.
Oramah said the board members decided to visit Dangote Group, which is a leading African conglomerate business in West Africa, and provide support to its ongoing refinery project.
He said Dangote was making tremendous impacts across the continent, which included Tanzania, The Gambia, Zambia and Niger and changing lives.
He said: “We are supporting them in what they are doing in those countries.
“So we are equally supporting them in this ongoing project.
“So, it is important for the Board of Directors of AFREXIMBANK to pay a courtesy a visit to the site.
“It is important to come and see firsthand the project that is ongoing because we are also planning to support them to ensure the project is delivered on scheduled.
“We are looking at providing all necessary support, both financial and otherwise, to ensure that the project is completed within the time frame.
“We are also looking at providing support window for Dangote Group that will be used to fund its projects to completion.
“The impacts of the projects are not going to be felt in Nigeria alone but across Africa, especially West Africa.
“So for us, it’s a strategic partnership were building.
“If we help them to impact lives across the continent, they will equally help in delivering on our mandate to meet the objective of AFREXIMBANK.
“It’s a wonderful facility that needs to be publicised to the world.
“The projects is the largest in the world, which will supply not only Nigeria, but West Africa.”
In his remarks, the Chief Operating Officer, Dangote Industries Limited, Olakunle Alake, said the board members of AFREXIMBANK, whom he called partners from Cairo in Egypt, came to see the level of the ongoing project.
Alake said the Fertilizer plant project was gradually nearing completion stage, adding that work had also commenced on the refinery project.
He said foreign exchange still remained a major challenge to the projects, adding that the forex had moved up from N280 per dollar to N310 now, which had further increased the company’s losses.
According to him, there are still serious challenges in sourcing for foreign exchange.
Alake said: “It s a challenge we found ourselves.
“We are posed to complete the projects within the time frame to ease the forex problem.
“We are engaging the Federal Government to support the private initiatives by providing funding to the projects.
“Government through the Bank of Industry schemes has given us credit facility of N50 billion to develop the fertilizer plant project.
“We have also gotten another approval of N75 billion for the refinery, which we have not disbursed.”
The COO of Dangote said that the $17 billion refinery project would crash the price of petrol because the product would be refined in the country and would therefore save some costs incurred in the import market.
Alake urged government to sincerely pursue the diversification of the economy.
He said projects such as these were needed to wean Nigeria from relying solely on oil as well as optimise government revenue.
According to him, the best way of diversification for Nigeria is agriculture and out fertelizer plant is in line with that goal.
He said: “By the time we finish our gas pipeline, it can generate about 12,000MW and we can export to other African countries.
“We would have the capacity to store four billion litres of products and can load 2,680 trucks per day.
“Nigeria will save $7.5 billion yearly from the project when completed.”
Alake said the plant’s basic engineering was currently at 98 per cent completion, while the construction stood at 30 per cent.
He said that the project would aid the country with about $7.5 billion forex savings on import substitution, generate $5 billion forex earnings from savings and another $5.5 billion export earnings.
The plant, according to him, will generate over 100,000 employment opportunities and revive over 11,000 filling stations that had been shut down due to shortage of products.
Alake said the project was designed to process largely variety of crude, including all African crude, a range of Middle Eastern crude and US crude.