NIGERIA – The Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals Company has announced the arrival of a key equipment that would process crude oil in its refinery being built in Lagos.

In a statement to newsrooms, the company described the crude distillation column equipment as the largest in the world with a distilling capacity of 650,000 barrels per stream day.

“The significant equipment has a weight of 2,250 metric tonnes; length, 112.5 metres; width, 14.036 metres; and height, 13.752 meters,” it said.

The company’s Head, Maritime and Ports Infrastructure, Capt. Rajen Sachar, was quoted as saying the equipment was the biggest single-train facility used for refining crude.

The refinery equipment, according to the statement, was manufactured by Sinopec in China and is the primary unit processor of crude oil into fuels.

Sachar said that the refinery, when completed, would produce Euro-V quality petrol and diesel, as well as jet fuel and polypropylene.

He said the strategic location of Nigeria in West Africa would help in reducing the transportation costs of these fuels to other countries in the African continent, thereby providing cost-effective, high-grade petroleum products to them.

Sachar said, “This refinery with a capacity of 650,000 bpsd is higher than the total demand of Nigeria, thus catapulting Nigeria from a net importer of petroleum products to a net exporter of petroleum products.”

He said it took 14 months for the crude oil processor to be constructed by Sinopec in China and eight weeks to bring it to Nigeria.

The Dangote Refinery is an oil refinery owned by the Dangote Group that is under construction in Lekki, Nigeria. When complete, it will have a capacity to process about 650,000 barrels per day of crude oil.

At full production, the facility will be able to produce 50,000,000 litres (13,000,000 US gal) of gasoline and 17,000,000 litres (4,500,000 US gal) of diesel daily, as well as aviation fuel and plastic products.

The project is expected to cost up to US$15 billion in total, with US$10 billion invested in the refinery, US$2.5 billion in the fertilizer factory, and US$2.5 billion in pipeline infrastructure.