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Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man and President of the Dangote Group, has alleged that influential fuel importers fought hard to frustrate the establishment of his $20 billion refinery, describing them as a “mafia” that feared the project would disrupt their trade.
In an interview with Nicolai Tangen, Chief Executive Officer of Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, Dangote said the refinery project launched in 2013 encountered many obstacles, some allegedly created by entrenched interests in the oil business.
“We looked at oil. Africa produces oil, but many countries don’t refine it. They export crude and import refined products, which drains foreign reserves,” Dangote said.
“In Nigeria, we had fuel queues for more than 50 years. People queued for days during Christmas just to buy petrol in an oil-producing country. Government refineries were not functioning properly, so I decided to take the bold step of building a refinery.”
Dangote said land acquisition alone delayed the project for five years.
“Some of these obstacles were created by entrenched interests in the oil business – what you might call a mafia – trying to stop us from solving these problems. But we stayed focused,” he said.
He noted that the naira exchange rate was 156 naira to the dollar when the project began and, at one point, rose as high as 1,900 naira, but construction continued.
Dangote said the company had to build its own port because no existing Nigerian port could handle the heavy equipment, with some individual pieces weighing up to 3,000 tonnes.
“When we started, the naira exchange rate was ₦156 to the dollar. At one point it went as high as ₦1,900, but we still continued. We had to build our own port because no existing Nigerian port could handle the heavy equipment.
“Some individual pieces weighed up to 3,000 tonnes. We built roads, water infrastructure and other facilities from scratch. The refinery alone uses 440 million litres of treated water. Our water treatment section covers more than 30 hectares.”
About 67,000 people worked on the refinery project, Dangote said, adding that he was unaware of the full scale at the beginning.
“Honestly, we were lucky we didn’t fully understand the enormity of what we were building at the beginning. If I had seen the full scale immediately, I might have chickened out,” he said.
“It was like swimming across the ocean. Once you’re in the middle, you can’t go back, so you keep moving forward.”
